The Fault in Our Stars
by Boogie-Down
Summary: *Formerly titled Defective, I never liked it though, the new title is supposed to be a bad joke* Its been almost a year since he found the alien crawling around in his basement. After a tedious day of teaching he wanted nothing more than to come home and relax. Zim had other plans for the weekend, come Monday one of his students was going to be very surprised. Horror themed ZADR.
1. Things in the dark

I don't own Invader Zim. If I did it'd be ten times the gay and ten times not on Nickelodeon. It would have had a proper ending instead of fading into obscurity in the nether of cable television.

I exist in fan girl land. I will past all of the things that make the show so great but the fanfics so dumb. (What can I say I love em still…my fandom is strong)

This is some serious stuff right here don't you know?

I just like the idea of Zim being a grotesque spider. I think he proved that enough in the episode where he hid in the vents and stole organs. Pretty badass…

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Vincent wasn't a credulous person. Growing up his brain never subjected him to the potential nightmares that lurked in his closet or under his bed.

He never envisioned creatures waiting in hallway shadows or encountered spectral entities haunting the corners of his home.

He seldom cared for stories of fairy folk or any of those other mischievous magical creatures that lived in the woods, mountains and lakes.

Demons were a product of religious paranoia; likewise were the guardian angels sent to vanquish the lecherous beasts.

He didn't believe that humans had spiritual connections with the Earth.

He didn't believe in any ritualistic practice.

He didn't believe that a person's birth dictated their personality.

He didn't believe there was life beyond the atmosphere living amongst the stars.

He didn't believe in anything that he couldn't see with his own eyes.

He was a very cynical child growing up. Where many of his peers spent their days immersed in their imaginations dreaming up pretend beings and problems; he was wondering about the mysteries of the world around him.

Outlandish dreams never held sway for his interest as much as the curiosities of the planet on which he lived.

The other children would run through the neighborhood chasing each other playing cops and robbers. Vincent would sit on the sidewalk and marvel at a line of ants marching across the warm concrete.

Where were the ants going? Why were they moving in the first place? How did these miniscule insects know how to walk in such a perfect line?

Why could they carry such heavy things while they walked? These were the sorts of questions he asked about everything in life.

Sometimes it drove his parents crazy. He was a child who asked more questions than he ever should have. He never took a simple answer either.

You couldn't tell Vincent "Oh things are that way just because they are." He had to know why.

As he got older his parents encouraged him to use his natural curiosity to his advantage after they realized that he wasn't merely going through a phase.

Vincent never had a normal childhood. Typical adolescences went through the phases of boyhood-Potty training, the big boy bed, the fear of the dark, going to school for the first time, overcoming a bully, finding a good niche to fit into while they transformed from chubby little round shapes into their more gangly adolescent limbs.

All of the things that seemed to be a rite of passage were never experienced by Vincent.

He was a loner for most of his childhood.

He was different from everybody else. He never felt comfortable around his peers. His play activities were very solidary times.

He received toys like microscope sets and light boxes. He loved catching bugs growing up. He also loved mounting them in display cases.

He was gifted with numbers so he was often found scribbling down equations and solving them in his notebooks. He liked things like shapes.

He always thought it was interesting looking at a picture of a cube and figuring out that there was more than just the sides he could look at.

He admired people like Einstein instead of idolizing any baseball star or wrestler. He plastered pictures of natural weather disasters on his walls because he thought storms were cool.

He was labeled a nerd by his peers. He was picked on a lot while growing up. It didn't help that his body remained relatively small for most of his childhood.

He didn't have the strength to defend himself from those who hurt him. He spent most of his youth wondering why he was different. His puberty had been embarrassing to say the least.

He developed in Hi-Skool. His lot changed from being one of the shortest kids to one of the tallest in a surprising little amount of time.

He was still a nerd with his shaggy unkempt hair, thick glasses and pants that always kept falling off skinny ass. The main difference in his Hi-Skool career was that it became trendy to look way.

In a bizarre twist of fate the 'nerdy' kids gained a level of appreciation.

He started dating in Hi-Skool. Surprisingly enough he went through multiple girlfriends throughout his time spent there.

In Hi-Skool he discovered he wanted to do something with science as a full career. Science was the magic that always enticed him.

It was the surreal phenomenon he missed out on his childhood. With science he could very well be a wizard except through actual legitimate means.

In science he could, for example, change the chemical properties of one solution and get several different yet equally amazing results based on what he did.

That simple idea was incredible to Vincent. The world had given him tools which he could use to virtually change anything.

His future plans were so much better than his classmates. He was given an opportunity to make a real difference in the world.

It was sad reflecting on what brought him to this moment.

Vincent slowly loosened his tie. He studied his living room as he stood mere inches from his open front door. The light that poured into the otherwise dark room didn't provide much to go on.

He could only clearly see his unused coffee table. A fine layer of dust had settled on top of the wood. He stopped bothering to clean a long time ago.

Now as he stared at the uncared for piece of furniture he gaped at the abandoned drinking glass still sitting on top of the table. The contents of his drink had long since stopped being a liquid.

Whatever it was, probably tea or soda, was now a brown calcified stain tarnishing the inside of the glass. The dust had also made its way inside of the glass and now the brown smear was furry on top.

He pulled at his tie some more with his free hand. He didn't need to see the living room in its entirety to paint an otherworldly picture.

His television sat on its stand collecting its own dust layer; the couch, its two end tables and the armchair rested unused close by.

It was as if he stepped into a dimension where time remained still. The only proof that time kept moving forward in this place was the fuzzy glass sitting on his table.

The hardening contents of a sugary beverage was all that he needed to confirm that time was still in motion.

He almost lost himself in the moment. If he tried hard enough he could have sworn that things were not as bad as they were.

He felt peace in those few seconds. The last ten years didn't happen with an emphasis on the more recent fleeting eight months.

The moment was shattered by a strange noise. He recognized the out of place sound immediately.

A clicking filled the airwaves. If he never heard it before now he would have compared it to the dying chiggers of an insect. He studied enough damn bugs in his day to make such a comparison.

He sucked in a sharp breath. The sound was getting louder. The thing making the noise was becoming angrier. He knew why. He kicked the front door.

It swung dramatically back on its hinges. The sunlight disappeared when the door shut in its frame. He was left standing in a pitch black room.

He sealed every window in the house a long time ago by means of garbage bags and duct tape. He couldn't board up the windows on the account of the neighbors getting suspicious.

He opted to seal the inside layer behind the blinds with a large spread of the black plastic which was held in place by an even thicker layer of tape.

Once the windows were sealed he bought black out curtains to block out any remaining trickles of light that might want to enter.

The idea was to sequester the inside of his home as much as possible. It was another part of the reason he felt like he walked into an alternate dimension.

The angry clicking ebbed. Vincent released his breath that he didn't even realize he was holding. So much for the peace.

"I told you to keep the door shut." A voice replaced the previous sound.

The voice was raspy yet slightly robotic all at the same time. The metallic inflection of the words were disturbing. Every time Vincent heard the voice it made the hairs on his arms go rigid.

"I'm sorry." Vincent winced when he heard something big and serpent-like scuttle across the ground.

He would never get used to those noises as long as he lived, things crawling around in the darkness across his hardwood floors clicking and scratching.

They were things that he never believed to be real before this nightmare began.

"It's not good enough. I told you to keep the door closed at all times. The light hurts my eyes remember?"

Vincent didn't dare move. He couldn't see in the dark like the thing watching him. Even if he could discern his surroundings he wouldn't stand a chance against the creature.

The thing was strong and fast. It would have been on him in seconds if it wanted to. It would take even less time to tear his windpipe right out of his neck in a variety of unpleasant ways.

All he had in his defense were his words. He was not above begging at all. "I'm so sorry. It won't happen again. I had a long day. The kids were being exceptionally terrible. Two fights broke out in two different periods. Now I have to grade a bunch of papers for the weekend. It's that time of the year where everybody is anxious for the summer to start already."

"Vincent why do I care?" The thing interrupted.

The man anxiously moved about on his feet just to have something to do in the stillness.

"I was merely explaining why my head is kind of in the clouds. I was thinking about what I still have to do and I forgot to shut the door."

The living room floor lamp illuminated. Vincent's eyes took a second to adjust to the new light. The thing that spoke to him hated the sunlight but was ok with average watt lamps for short periods of time.

When his eyes adjusted to the sensation of being able to see again he focused on the hunched over figure beating at one of the couch cushions. Vincent studied the grotesque shape in front of him.

His analytical brain wouldn't let him stop. The creature had changed so much from when he first saw it. It grew faster than his brain could properly process.

When he first met this thing it was maybe five foot on a good day. It was originally the size of a malnourished child.

Now it stood well over seven feet. The thing still kept the qualities of a starving pubescent except its body had stretched into almost comical proportions now.

Perhaps things might have been funny if they were under different circumstances. Maybe if the creature was an absurdly tall person perhaps Vincent would have been able to crack a joke.

The thing vaguely resembled a human. It had two eyes, two arms and two legs. The rest of its features merely alluded to a tangible shape.

The body that grew over two feet in the sparse months obviously wasn't ready for such a change. When the creature walked around on its legs it often wobbled like a newborn causing it to stumble into the walls more often than walk in a straightforward path.

It preferred to crawl. It was much more stable lurking around on its hands and feet. The elongation of its extremities and torso stretched its thin skin to the limits.

The creature's flesh was atrociously soft looking. It was pliable in the sense that it had been forced to cover an awkward set of protruding bones.

The creature was so thin that its stomach was convex and he could see the bumps of what looked like ribs underneath the frail chest.

The same thing was happening with its concave neck were the collar bones were visible. It also had large wrist knobs and a slight bow in the knees.

There wasn't a hair over its flesh or on its head and if it wasn't for the angry welt marks and bruises from where the thing ran into the walls it would have been a perfect shade of pale green.

The bruises weren't typical splotches of blue-black either. They were an angry red color that only faded to burgundy after a long time.

The creature had nothing on its bald head save for two long antennae that grew out of the upper part of its forehead. The antennae were long enough to completely stretch the span of the creature's scalp.

They ended in fine points at the base of its neck. The thing's eyes were two enormous solid red ovals. The eyes didn't have eyelids to protect the orbs.

It did have the ability to coat them in a fluid like substance when it needed the extra protection however. The coating made the large ruby colored eyes shine in the right lighting.

It didn't seem to be able to control their secretions well. The creature was constantly wiping the membrane away with its claws. It had no nose so its face was somewhat mushed in.

It had a large cartoonlike mouth full of dingy brown teeth. Vincent wasn't sure what the teeth were made of since he wasn't confident the bones he associated the creature to have were actually comprised of any mineral on earth.

The sharp protrusions were stained that color from the creature's foul mouth secretions. When the thing spit it was like it kept a mouth full of chewing tobacco.

The brown fluid was even a bit greasy in its consistency. Its needlelike grin was the creature's own handiwork. Originally its teeth were flat and close together.

It took a bit of ingenuity involving Vincent's toolkit to file the creature's teeth into the sharp points they were today.

Throughout the months Vincent wondered on whether or not the thing was a male or female or anything recognizable when it came to a sex.

The frailty of its body and the lack of seeing male genitalia initially made him think it was a girl.

Now as time went on the thing's mannerisms mixed with its masculine voice convinced him that it was more male than female; although he was pretty sure the creature was actually a mixture of both.

When he first saw it crawling around not wearing any clothing, all he could see beyond the absurdity of its existence was that there was a slit between the two skinny legs that extended from its pelvis to the supposed anus.

It turned out to be surprisingly modest. It demanded that Vincent buy clothing to cover its nudity. The rapidly growing body ensured that it outgrew everything too quickly to keep up buying appropriate covering.

The creature now made its own clothing. Vincent was impressed that the thing could sew. He ended up purchasing a bunch of workout spandex that it happily tore apart and reshaped for its purposes.

It was currently in one of those skintight creations now. He was disturbed by his level of familiarity with the creature. He knew it had a fondness for the color red.

That was the one color it chose to decorate itself with more than anything else. The creature moved on to the other couch cushion while he stared.

It began to beat this one with its claws in another attempt to get the dust out. Vincent now quietly observed the red oval hanging in the middle of the frail back that faced him.

It was a backpack sized piece of technology he wished he could get the opportunity to study more up close.

The way that the creature normally protected its backside convinced him that the small machine was more important than he realized.

Sometimes Vincent would catch the metal sack sending out visible currents of electricity that traveled up through the body into the creature's head.

He theorized that this was the hub where the creature's important neural activity took place. Vincent believed the pod itself was somehow the actual being.

He already concluded some time ago that this thing was organic and part machine at the same time.

It intrigued him to think that the awkward body might only be a host for the machine portion to be able to move around and interact with its environment.

There were too many nights Vincent laid awake thinking about the origins of such a being. He tossed out many ideas. The creature for a long time would only talk to him minimally to get what it needed.

As it got stronger it alluded to its origins here and there. It claimed to have been made in a tube.

Through his own thought process Vincent figured there were only two explanations for its creation, either it was a human at some point turned into this thing by experimentation or it was…

An alien

A visitor from beyond the stars.

Vincent was more confident in the latter idea. It shattered all of his carefully placed ideals.

He didn't believe in the supernatural.

He didn't believe in monsters.

He didn't believe in things from fucking outer space!

The irony was not lost on him about his situation. If he was wrong about aliens then what else was he wrong about growing up?

It opened him to a world that he wasn't ready for; an unseen world he carefully stored away as fantasy in childhood.

Now the horrors were let loose! They were mucking around freely in his head. When he went to sleep he was always mindful of the shadows now.

His eyes were open to what was prowling in them.

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The creature gave up on trying to clean the couch cushions. It forced Vincent to try instead. After five minutes of furiously beating away the dust they became tolerable to sit on.

Vincent moved aside to let the much taller frame ebb down into a seated position. Its awkward body took more time than necessary to get comfortable.

Vincent seated himself in the recliner close by. He ignored the dust. He just wanted this conversation to be over. It was rare when the creature wanted to talk.

He didn't have a choice on when to end the conversation either. Everything was out of his control. He no longer had any free will. He was a slave to this thing.

They both knew he didn't have an easy way out of its clutches either. The creature opened up the leather satchel Vincent kept his school papers in after demanding that he give it the bag.

It sifted through each test carefully looking for who knew what. He didn't dare speak while it flipped through the stack in its claws.

Vincent never spoke directly unless he was spoken to first by the thing. It was one of the many rules he obeyed.

They never carried a direct conversation about rules but Vincent followed a strict set he made for himself to help ensure his survival. The creature seemed pleased by his subjugation.

After a few minutes it tossed the stack in its grip on to the coffee table. Most of the tests didn't land on the table. They fell to the floor and scattered across the hairballs.

The creature reopened the bag so it could grab another handful of tests. "You work over at the Hi-Skool right? I'm not wrong in thinking this?"

Vincent nodded. "Yeah I do. I teach chemistry."

"So it's safe to assume that you might know a young teenage boy with the dumbest name of all time. They call him Dib."

Vincent's heart almost stopped for a moment. How did the thing know about Dib? Dib was one of his favorite students. The boy was quiet and respectful.

He always stayed out of trouble. He did his Skool work without complaint. Vincent knew just from his perfect test scores alone that he was far to gifted to be in a public Hi-Skool setting.

He even offered to put in a good word on several occasions for the boy if he decided to transfer to something that was in his level. He never understood why Dib seemed to purposefully hold himself back.

It was as if he was embarrassed for his knowledge which broke Vincent's heart. He saw a lot of himself in the teen when he was the kid's age.

It was why he went out of his way to try to push Dib to better himself. Vincent fell into the trappings of teenage hood which led him ultimately down the wrong path.

He didn't want to see the same thing happen to such a promising future. For the first time since he met the creature he almost lied to it.

The problem was that Dib was one of his students. His test waited in the skoolbag like all the others to be graded.

Vincent was almost certain now that Dib's test was what the thing kept looking for. He didn't have to be a mind reader to connect the question with what the creature was doing.

"I know him." He replied.

The thing clicked approvingly. There were many different kinds of noises it made to express its spectrum of emotion.

When it was angry its cries tended to be loud, consistent and annoying. When it was happy it almost purred; the utterances were much softer, much more pleasant.

Well they were as pleasant as something that reminded Vincent of a chattering bug could be.

"He's a student of mine. He's a really great kid." He continued.

"I know he's wonderful. You'll never be able to understand how special he really is. I wager that he's better than any human on this dirtball. In fact, you could say he might be the only one worth saving in your entire race."

"I…"

"I know it's so confusing for you. The brat and I have a history together."

What? How was that even possible? There was no way that a young teenage boy no older than sixteen had any connection with the monster living in his house.

There was just no plausible way. This had to be a trick. It had to be a game. The creature liked playing games with Vincent every once in a while. It enjoyed seeing him squirm.

He stared into the creature's bright eyes. There was no way to tell if it was joking or not. The creature found what it was looking for.

The other unwanted tests along with the bag were tossed off to the side where they were promptly forgotten. It inspected the stapled packet carefully.

The satisfied clicking rose in decibels. Its long antennae perked up on its head. Those damn extensions made Vincent think about all sorts of nasty skulking things.

It hummed "This is his handwriting. Ah I knew I could smell his scent in this bag. My sense of smell only recently returned to me over the last couple of days. Everything before reeked like burnt plastic."

Vincent pondered briefly over how the creature could smell without a nose.

"Did you know that each human has their own unique smell?"

"Of course, pheromones are the reason for it. They give people signals about all sorts of things especially when it comes to our mating."

"Irkens don't have their own scent. We smell like metal since we're mostly machine. There was a time when, perhaps we might have been like humans in this way, but that's been long passed. There aren't many opportunities we get to express ourselves individually seeing as differences aren't celebrated in my race."

"So that's what you are? You're an…what did you call it…an Ir…ken?"

The creature chuckled. "Yes I'm an Irken. I'm what you humans call an alien though the term is very misinformed. I'm actually just another race from the incalculable numbers that inhabit the universe. You humans are far too cocky for your own good. You dirt crawlers can't even get passed your own moon yet you think you're the only intelligent things that exist. You want to know how I learned about this worthless planet. My leaders at the time told me about it after they purposefully chose a planet so far off that it wasn't even on our maps. That's how insignificant you are. Hardly anyone knows about this place and those that do don't even care. It's an afterthought of an afterthought."

"I see."

"Well aren't you observant! I know why they certified you to teach children now! You're so smart!"

Vincent ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth to keep it from getting him in trouble. He needed to get through this ordeal with all of his extremities kept in their proper place.

The Irken raised Dib's test close to its face. It opened its mouth a little wider inhaling through the open cavity deeply.

A low series of tiny mewls escaped from its lips. "If there's one thing that I do like about humans I will admit to enjoying these odors. Humans play in the dirt all day and yet you all manage to smell so different. I really like the females in particular, they do smell good."

There were a few seconds where the Irken paused to take in more of Dib's left behind aroma. "But you know what Dib still smells better. Now that all of my senses are returning to me proper I can pick up even more fascinating new scents about him that I couldn't before. Granted he's always been off since the moment I first met him."

"Why are you telling me this? You never talk to me about anything."

"Ah straight to the point. Fine I'll cut the crap. Vincent I have to tell you that I think our time spent together has been very special. Don't you think so?"

"I…"

"But as great as this all has been, I think our relationship is coming to an end."

"W…what?" Shameless tears instantly sprang into the teacher's eyes. He instinctively tucked his body further into the chair to put more distance between himself and the Irken sitting on his couch.

"It's nothing personal Vincent. I hate almost everyone and everything. I promise you that it's not that I have a special vendetta against your life. I really would like to keep you around, really I mean that. You've been a wonderful obedient pet. It's just that I can't rationalize a use for you in the future is all."

"You're living with me!" Vincent snapped. "I'm providing a roof over your head! I gave you protection from the cold winter when you were half the size you are now. You don't remember any of that? You don't remember me finding you crawling around in the basement trying to survive the elements? You can't kill me! Where would you go? If I don't go to work people will come here and find my body. They will come and sell the house. You'll be back out there on your own! Do you think that a being as large and terrifying as you won't eventually be spotted somewhere out there? They'll see you. People will hunt you down and kill you and if they don't you'll succumb to whatever weather or pestilence nature has waiting out there for you!"

"Aw Vincent you're breaking my heart, don't leak." The alien discarded Dib's test.

The Irken began to rise out of its seated position. Vincent tried to get off of the chair. His attacker was too quick. It descended on him. He tried to scream.

It wrapped both claws around his throat. Vincent struggled against the Irken. Why was it so absurdly strong?

He only managed to pull both of them onto the ground where the much larger body coiled around him.

It's vice grip around his airways began to take their toll on the Hi-Skool teacher. His struggling started to ebb away. It wriggled until it was back on top of Vincent.

It wrapped both of its long legs around the man's own to keep them as still as possible. Vincent's arms fell away from the pale green ones that assaulted him.

The Irken hovering above him smiled. There were fine dribbles of brown sludge leaking out of the corners of its predatory smirk.

It took a couple more minutes for Vincent to die. The man's body seized one last time then he collapsed permanently. The Irken finally let go.

Vincent's eyes were reddish blue from when his capillaries burst from the insane pressure. Those broken orbs were staring at the Irken blankly. The man's mouth had contorted into a scream that would never be heard.

His head was already swelling due to his crushed lymph nodes not being able to circulate his bodily fluids properly.

There were two large black hook marks on his throat where the Irken's claws strangled him.

It stuck its tongue out at the dead man. "What a loser. Well I suppose I should get to work then. Busy weekend ahead of me. Need a knife…oh wait no a razor will make it easier…hmm maybe I was a bit hasty. Well it's too late now Zim he's kinda dead. No it'll work out. He would just be annoying going forward all leaking and feeling bad I don't need that."

The Irken mumbled to itself for a very long time after murdering the teacher. It was prone to do that.

Its addled brain often went somewhere far away for extended periods of time. Sometimes when it came out of its stupor it was never sure how much time really passed during such events.

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And the plot…

It thickens…

Sorta…kinda…eh…

Waffles…

(Oh the joys of editing)


	2. Mr Pulmonic

For the record I wanted the title of this fanfic to be 'The Fault in Our Stars.' Yup just like that book turned into a movie about that dying lady.

Ahaha…tragic…

I dunno I've already taken one copyright thing and violated its material…I thought it would be in bad taste to go two for two…

What do you think? I personally think it's a brilliant title for this stupid thing…

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"_So what about that one? Think you've been there?" _

_Zim shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe…who knows I've been alive for so long now, it's hard to remember everywhere that I've traversed. Half of the time was spent, well, I didn't spend that time appreciating things like I should have."_

"_That's a shame. I can't even imagine what sort of crazy shit you've seen. I would love to fly out there and explore every single one of those little specks."_

"_There you go getting all sentimental on me. What did I tell you about that? Keep it to yourself brat lest you start leaking on me."_

"_Ok first off people don't 'leak' they cry which in way they do leak but that's such a messed up way of talking about it. We don't just cry for the sake of doing it…well maybe some people do. No I won't give you the satisfaction by justifying your bigotry, and don't you start going off on some insane rant about how it's anything but that. It's all nonsense."_

"_Oh says the brat whose been alive in this life for only fifteen years? What do you know about anything?" _

_Dib paused so he could scratch at the fine line of hairs beginning to poke through his chin. _

_There wasn't much there mind you. He just liked the feel of them and enjoyed the thought of what it meant to have them in the first place._

"_I know that there is life out there thriving amongst those beautiful stars. I met one of those beings who calls them home. You know he's a real asshole that guy. You think as the first legitimate celestial to contact this planet he'd try to represent those other inhabitants of the universe a little better. First impressions make all the difference."_

"_Cocky little dirt child."_

"_Mutant cricket."_

_Both presences smiled at their 'witty banter'. Of all the things they could talk about while staring up at the night sky this conversation had to be up there with the greats, whoever they were._

"_Crickets are brown or black I thought. Shouldn't I be a grasshopper instead?"_

"_Nah you don't have the legs for it." The olive toned alien turned his head towards the adolescent boy sitting next to him. _

_He glared at the teenager trying to look as offended as possible. "You little wretch. I could have skinned you for less on my home planet. I might not have technically been a high ranking official but beings that aren't Irken are still considered inferior to any of us no matter where we stand in the empire."_

"_I told you not to start going on like that you weird racist cricket looking asshole."_

"_I see now it all comes around full circle. Good one Dib. It might be the best slander you've come up with yet."_

"_Well at least you didn't call me brat. It's a start I suppose."_

"_Don't get comfortable. It was a slip of the tongue." _

_Dib smirked at the smaller green figure beside him. Zim was sitting cross legged resting his claws on his ankles. _

_Dib wanted to tell him that for a being who was supposedly at least a couple_ _hundred years old or better he looked younger now in this moment than ever before. _

_He didn't bring it up though. He mentioning something like that would get the alien seriously angry with him. _

_Zim was touchy about all sorts of weird stuff that he still sometimes had trouble keeping in order._

_The alien's cultural stigmas were harsh and that was saying something considering humans weren't exactly friendly to one another either. _

_One thing that was considered taboo amongst his kind was the issue of height. Why it was an issue none could actually remember. _

_Apparently small Irkens were looked down on, pun not purposefully intended. According to Zim if Dib were of his kind he would have been worshipped. _

_The boy was definitely going through a growth spurt. He was exactly six foot and two inches. He knew his precise measurements. Zim wouldn't leave him be until he measured him._

_He wanted to laugh at the quirky little memory. When the alien learned of his height he made some kind of warble that the teen couldn't describe to this day._

_He then promptly kicked Dib out of his living space and refused to speak to the boy for an entire week._

_It was only after Dib came knocking on the alien's front door forcefully bearing gifts of penance that the smaller being allowed him back into good graces. _

_Oh yeah and he was forced to take a gentleman's bow there was that too. Dib even air gestured to the imaginary top hat sitting on his head when he did it. _

_He grabbed at its invisible brim and tucked it into his side. It was all very formal._ _He didn't mind the demand. He wasn't offended or anything like that._

_Dib didn't bother to bring up his observations then just like he didn't now. He noticed the way the alien's arms were shaking that day. _

_He took note of how Zim gritted his teeth tightly while he waited for the assuaging response he desired._

_In Zim's world his shorter stature was his people's representation of deformity. It was comparable to anyone on Earth suffering with a physical problem in which others openly stared sometimes even ridiculed. _

_Zim needed the affirmation of respect. He would never openly admit to desiring the human's adoration. _

_The demand he made about Dib bowing was the best attempt he could muster when it came to addressing the deeper issue._

_The teenager was happy to oblige if it gave his friend peace of mind. In truth, he adored the green space man. It took a lot of years for his heart to come around._

_When it did it was so sudden that it scared him at first._

_One day they were at each other's throats ready to strangle one another to see who expired first, the next, Dib found himself gingerly pressing his palms against Zim's three fingered claws just to get a better look at their differences. _

_Zim even took off the gloves he normally wore so their skin could get acquainted. _

"_Why are you looking at me like that?" _

_Zim's ruby eyes darkened. It was the only visible way you could gauge his mood if you paid enough attention. He was good at masking his emotions when he put the effort into it. _

_When he stacked his poker face it was impossible to read him except for those two glossy orbs. If Zim was in a pleasant mood they were a brighter red._

_If he was not feeling as cordial they tended to darken; the more upset he got the darker they became. _

_When he was pushed over the edge like the whole being angry over Dib's height fiasco his eyes were as dark as wine._ _Dib finally laughed. It originated deep from inside his belly._

_It bubbled up to the surface where he couldn't help himself. He needed to let it all out. Zim's eyes went a little bit darker. _

_They'd come to a point in their relationship that he could appreciate the jokes aimed his way._

_He didn't like the misplaced laughter though. He was about to say something mean to the stupid dirt crawler. He never got the words out. Dib closed what little gap separated their bodies._

_He went in for a very chaste kiss. His lips landed right over the pout forming on the other's face. It was so fast the alien had just enough time to forget any anger he might have felt seconds before._

_His eyes fluttered a few times as he processed what exactly happened. "You dirt children and your hormones. You have no self-control. Did you ever stop to think how that could have hurt me?"_

"_Oh be quiet I have chapstick greased on my lips and it wasn't open mouthed. Whatever bothersome saliva you're scared of didn't come near you."_

"_I wasn't scared."_

"_I mean I'd want to kiss you longer if that were an option."_

"_What?"_

"_However there's this bothersome problem of your body dissolving when water touches you. I have enough moisture to hurt you. I don't want to hurt you unless you really deserve to be punched in the head. I reserve that right as the sole defender of this planet."_

"_You're such a brat! Oh and if you were as smart and observant as you like to think you are you would have noticed some changes."_

"_Changes?"_

"_Yeah. My oral secretions are thickening and slowly changing colors. It's the best way I can describe it. I feel off since I'm not used to it. Overall though it's getting better. It's starting to be comfortable." _

_Now it was Dib's turn to be confused. His gorgeous amber colored eyes with the small inner rings of gold widened. "Huh what are you suggesting?"_

"_I…well…"_

"_Hey no you can't just bring something like that up and not follow through. You can't start a conversation with and I quote 'My oral secretions are thickening and slowly changing colors'. You can call it spit it doesn't have to sound like it's some kind of malformed snot bubble."_

"_Is that your scientific analysis?"_

"_Zim shut up, and what I mean by shut up is continue with your little explanation." _

_Zim sighed. "I believe my body is adapting to its environment. I think I'm building immunities to what is toxic to me. Water isn't as potent as before. Oh it still hurts don't get me wrong. It feels like I'm being scalded as opposed to outright burning now."_

"_And?"_

"_And what?"_

"_Zim!" _

_The alien clicked a few times from a place in the middle of his throat. _

"_I don't even want to hear those reproaching notes you're about to chirp at me."_

"_I think that when it comes to my…spit…really this is stupid…this part at least."_

"_Fascinating."_

"_Stop that. Stop mocking me. Oh fine if it'll cease your mouth from prattling on any more. It's starting to turn sort of light red in color and I've noticed a change in my sense of smell along with the odors I'm producing. What I'm making isn't very potent yet but my ability to detect different aromas has already increased tenfold. Like I can smell things on you and about you that I wasn't able to before. Don't even ask what I mean. The best example I can offer you is that now I can definitely tell you're a boy. If I was blind I probably wouldn't have known if this change never happened or if I never heard your voice. You smell…good. You smell really good actually."_

"_Oh." Dib's cheeks heated up. He hoped under the dim moonlight it wasn't too noticeable. _

_Zim huffed. "As far as these odors I'm producing are concerned; I think in time you're limited range of smell will even be able to pick up on this. I believe that I'm starting to be like you humans in the sense that I'm emitting my own personal scent. So you know these pheromones you dirt people waft around all day? I think I have my own now. What's even more interesting, if you can call it that, is that I think I'm actually in the process of making my own aphrodisiac. My mouth tingles a lot like I've been sloshing around mouthwash."_

_Dib's face went scarlet. His mouth promptly closed. He found a random patch of darkness fascinating all of the sudden. _

_This time Zim managed to get a few entertained clicks against the teen's earlier laughing. "You had to know and now you do. Come here brat. There's no going back now. You might as well put that mouth to better use."_

_Before Dib could pick up on the alien's intent Zim was already turning his body to face the boy better. He grabbed the right side of the Dib's face firmly yet gently enough to not cause harm._

_He guided the teen's mouth back towards where he resided. In one surprisingly fluid motion the alien locked lips with the human. _

_Zim's tongue was long and segmented. He used the dexterous muscle to forcefully explore the other open cavity._

_The human allowed the molestation. He could feel what Zim was talking about. His entire mouth including his lips began to cool down. _

_Everything sort of tingled like he was swirling mouthwash exactly like the alien spoke of earlier. _

_His head started swimming a bit. Everything was wonderful for a time. He thought that the moment lasted longer then what it actually did. _

_The refreshing feeling remained yet the taste went sour. At first he thought it was smoke that filled the space between their mouths. _

_It wasn't smoke. It was steam or at least the airborne remnants of Zim's tongue which was beginning to liquefy. Dib tried to pull away from the alien. _

_He was getting hurt! Zim held him fast. He was getting a lot stronger these days. Dib who normally could provide him a worthy match in hand to hand fighting had noticed the change some time ago. _

_It was getting harder to resist Zim. He wondered if there would come a day when he wouldn't be able to wriggle from the alien's intensifying grip anymore. _

_Zim groaned inside of the much younger teen's mouth. It was part pain and part ecstasy. Dib placed his hand over Zim's. _

_Zim grabbed the other side of his face in retaliation locking Dib in_ _place. The teenager didn't feel any of the pain that he knew the alien was experiencing. _

_The ooze sloshing freely in between both of their mouths was so cool to him now he might as well be sucking on a Popsicle. _

_He compared the mist puffing out from their mouths joining to the dry ice people used for parties to add a foggy affect to the room._

_They wallowed in their ether cloud under the moonlight for a long time. It was much longer than Dib anticipated. _

_Zim only broke the intimate moment after his tongue completely dissolved. The human's acidic saliva was beginning to take toll on the rest of his mouth. _

_He pulled away from the human. Dib slowly opened his eyes. There were ribbons of sticky fluids leaking out from both of their orifices. Zim kept his hold on the teen's right cheek. _

_They remained inches apart while their breathing slowly evened. The alien smiled first. His mouth was a gory sight. _

_His flat teeth were stained a beet purple color. A few of his teeth were still in the middle of rotting out of his mouth leaving a few open gaps in the otherwise perfect straight rows._

_Dib didn't realize his own mouth was just as tragic. It was stained the same deep color as Zim. He was also having a problem with the remainder of Zim's tongue as it dribbled out of his lower lip which was now swollen a bit. _

_He couldn't feel his lips. They were completely numb. He didn't know Zim's tongue was beading into the fibers of his shirt. _

"_Damn." _

_Dib uttered the swear. It came out sounding ridiculous like he might have been a little slow. He couldn't get his coated lips to work properly._

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Something was wrong with Mr. Pulmonic. Dib sat and ruminated in his supposed new desk for the remainder of the school year up in first row.

The trouble started the moment the man walked through the door. The very first thing that the teenager noticed about his teacher was his clothing.

Mr. Pulmonic always dressed like he was getting ready for a funeral. His color scale went from the occasional crispy white collar all the way to the blackest turtleneck.

When it was wintertime he doubled his efforts by wearing that heavy long wool coat the teenager remembered so vividly. It made the man look like some kind of middle aged Noir Detective.

Dib would catch him outside sometimes when he was leaving Skool. His teacher was the obvious pepper speckle amongst a sea of swirling white powder.

He always had a half crumpled cigarette jammed in between his lips. He would take a long drag and an even longer time to release all of the languid rolling smoke.

He always eyed the Hi-Skool building intensely. To Dib in those moments he was a detective who needed the cigarettes to occupy his time while his brain sorted through the various clues and leads of his current case.

Dib always thought he had the right kind of face for such a role as well. The man wasn't all that old in retrospect.

The problem was that whatever worries he carried in his personal life reflected on his countenance.

There were wrinkles in his forehead along with stress lines at the corners of his mouth which was probably caused by the constant grimace he kept plastered on his face.

Dib felt sad whenever he stared to long into the man's dreary gray eyes. The teenager liked his teacher despite his disheartening appearance. Mr. Pulmonic was nice.

He seemed to care about his students. He tried to relate to them. Of course teenagers were repulsive sociopaths who didn't bother to appreciate the adults who tried to offer them respect.

He taught in a public Hi-Skool no less.

He also taught midlevel Chemistry to a bunch of sophomores who were more occupied with getting their driver's licenses and trying to figure out how to coax each other into fooling around in said cars.

Dib's peers didn't respect the teacher like he deserved. The man who was now leaning against his desk while holding his teachers version of the student's textbooks might as well have been a different person altogether.

Mr. Pulmonic was clothed almost completely from head to toe in red today. The vibrant color of his attire surprised everybody.

His perfectly starched button down shirt was not bright enough to be completely obnoxious but still close enough that it managed to bother their eyes anyway.

His dress slacks were pinstriped with alternating lines of two red hues. They were deeper shades that helped counteract the brightness of his shirt.

The oxfords on his feet were the only items that weren't red. They were still black. The next puzzling change in his aesthetics was the way he kept his hair.

The man's disheveled locks normally tried to curl at the tips. He always kept them down around his face.

They usually managed to get in one or both of his eyes throughout the course of the hour Dib got to spend with him every day.

It was slicked back now. This was the first time that Dib got to study the man's entire face perfectly. The teenager never realized how gaunt his cheeks were.

His eyes were also different. They were still gray, however, they were more alert than he could remember them being.

What bothered Dib most about his gaze was the way he kept catching those gray eyes staring at him.

As soon as the students trundled in through the door Mr. Pulmonic raised eyebrows and caused heavy groaning when he told them that he was shuffling their seating around.

He didn't offer a reason why. Dib sat in the back row all year up until this point.

He sat back there since Pulmonic was the kind of teacher who made a permanent seating chart every quarter based on where you liked to sit not where he wanted you to sit.

He was cool like that. Dib didn't enjoy being noticed so he generally ran for the back rows where he could avoid his fellow students.

His Grade-Skool and Middle-Skool years haunted him. He was done sticking out. His teacher seated the teenager exactly in the center of the first row.

As soon as that was done he passed out the graded tests he did over the weekend, well kind of. He made Dib do it.

The boy went through the entire roster and realized that his wasn't in the collection. When he asked about it the man dug through his leather bag that he always kept close by filled with Skool papers.

"Oh Dib it seems like I lost your test. I'm sorry. Do you mind staying after class for a few minutes so we can talk about what we can do to correct this?"

Dib agreed. He didn't have much going on after Skool. It was warm out now and he liked to walk home when it was nice like this.

When he got home he was planning on catching the marathon of his favorite television program Mysterious Mysteries. (A.N. sigh…these fuckin names man…remember this is serious stuff.)

He loved that show. He loved it enough that he was confident he already watched every single episode several different times.

The marathon wasn't offering any new material so he could miss a few episodes to correct the problem of his missing test.

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The hour took its sweet time to pass. Mr. Pulmonic was filling up the time by having his students read different parts of the chapter they were on.

So far he didn't call on Dib. Dib was pretty sure he skipped him on purpose.

The teenager looked around at the order they were lined up as Pulmonic went down the rows pointing to his students in a pattern.

The front kid of the first row was called then the next person behind that child continued. He called out for reading all the way down until the last kid took a turn then he'd start with the next line.

Dib wasn't paying attention to the lesson. He didn't really need to. This kind of stuff was beneath him. He simply liked the secure feeling of a boring routine.

It was why he kept going to public Hi-Skool in the first place.

He was trying to squeeze out a few more uneventful years before his father pushed him into what Dib would assume could be called the family business.

He decided to doodle in his notebook instead. He had gotten really good at pretending to take notes.

When Mr. Pulmonic skipped him the only reason he noticed was because of the glare he could feel aimed at the back of his head by his classmate sitting behind him.

Once Dib felt the eyes he finally glanced up then took a look around. He recounted one more time to make sure he wasn't crazy. Mr. Pulmonic skipped him alright.

"Dib is there something wrong?"

The teenager snapped his attention forward. Mr. Pulmonic's gray eyes were locked on him now. The boy didn't notice how close his teacher wandered towards his desk.

He quickly attempted to cover his spiral notebook of doodles with his open textbook. The man seemed taller than normal.

It was a weird idea that passed through his mind as his teacher placed his hand directly on top of his own. Dib couldn't remember having to strain his neck this hard to look up at him even while sitting down.

"I uh…I…I'm ok." The teenager shuddered.

Mr. Pulmonic pushed the boys hand away which exposed his latest creation. Dib fought to keep his face from turning pink.

Everybody's attention peaked at the interaction between them now. This was the first time there had ever been conflict between the two since they all knew he was Pulmonic's favorite.

Mr. Pulmonic asked "What's this?"

"Nothing it's nothing."

"What is it supposed to be?"

Zim of course. Dib was drawing a picture of his missing friend. It wasn't a very good doodle, just a crummy little image of the alien sitting on a rocket. Of course he couldn't explain that to his teacher.

He couldn't say _"Oh it's just this space man I used to know. He came hurtling out of the sky one day and tried to kill me a couple of hundred times before he became my best friend."_

He opted to say nothing instead. Mr. Pulmonic leaned in for a better look. The other students all eagerly awaited. What was going to happen next?

Some thought the boy might be drawing pictures of their teacher. It didn't seem like they were favorable images going by his reaction to them.

"Cute. It's a tiny alien. He's even got antennae on top of his head. Where's his helmet though? If he's riding a rocket in space doesn't he need to breathe?"

"Well he's an alien maybe he doesn't have to."

Now he did it. There was no mistaking the rude loudness Dib put in his voice. For some reason the man asking about his picture really got to him.

In a weird way Mr. Pulmonic was indirectly talking about Zim. Dib was baffled at his own hasty anger over Zim being called tiny. Mr. Pulmonic might as well be calling him a freak.

"Well aren't we touchy today? You know I could write you up for this." Mr. Pulmonic snapped.

Dib's anger dissipated as quickly as it came. He was feeling loose now. His teacher's face leered over the teenager's head.

If Dib weren't occupied turning into jelly he would have noticed the man's extra-long expulsions of breath.

"No I won't do that. This is a first offense. Maybe you've had a bad day. I'm taking this notebook for the remainder of the period though. You can have it back after class, we need to talk anyway remember?"

Mr. Pulmonic removed the notebook off of Dib's desk. Dib didn't protest in the slightest way.

"Ok well surprise! There's a secret pop quiz over what we just read. Clear your desks."

The moment couldn't have been killed more effectively. All of the students together groaned. They blamed Dib for their misfortune despite him not having anything to do with a surprise quiz whatsoever.

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The bell rang. Dib was mortified. The remainder of the period was dedicated to everyone individually reading the last part of the lesson quietly.

Mr. Pulmonic sat at his desk and purposefully made a show to the boy about flipping through every last single page of his notebook.

Nobody else seemed to notice this behavior. Dib was the only one privy to the show. His notebook was full of drawings with an embarrassing portion of them being dedicated to Zim.

It took Dib's classmates a few minutes to file out the door. Mr. Pulmonic overenthusiastically ushered them through. When the last student was gone belongings and all he shut the door quickly.

The man didn't move from his place or take his hand off the wood. "Their horrible. I didn't know teenagers were _that bad_. Why do you lower yourself to their level Dib? You're better than them. You're taller than them. You're definitely smarter than them."

"What? What are you talking about?"

Mr. Pulmonic turned around. He smiled at Dib. "Sorry. Come over here and I'll give you your notebook back."

The teacher ambled over to his desk. Dib got out of his and slowly went towards Mr. Pulmonic who leaned on the thing for support.

He stopped before he wandered to close. "You look pale. Are you going to throw up?"

"This skin is so damn hot."

"Mr. Pulmonic? Do you need me to go get help?"

The man began digging at his scalp right where his hairline started. He buried his own nails into his flesh. "I missed you."

Dib started to go to the door instead of his teacher's desk.

"Where are you going!" Mr. Pulmonic shrieked. He ran towards the boy. He was unbelievably fast. Dib's brain needed time to catch up to what he was seeing.

The teacher placed his body in between the door and the teenager.

"I thought they were really nice. Those drawings I mean. Well…ok…you don't have any talent in that area unfortunately; they were pretty crappy overall."

"Who are you?" Dib was not falling for this charade anymore. The man blocking his exit was not his teacher. This was some imposter posing as him.

"I like the drawings because of all the things you could be thinking about you think about me. I'm flattered."

No way.

There was no way.

It couldn't be.

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*Cough hack sputter…*

Like a good neighbor State Farm is there…

That's the immediate thought that entered my head as I ended this for some reason.

(Editing is editing…is editing…an edit in an edit…its editception…fuck…


	3. Missing You

So I'm a stupid dumb idiot and didn't know how to edit chapters properly. I fixed stuff in both chapters and then deleted them to update them which caused the system to think I actually updated when I didn't. As soon as that happened then I saw the edit chapter button that would have solved all of the problems…yup…it's like that.

Life has been happening and my brain isn't all here…

I needed to fix...so much shit it's not even funny. There was a time warp jammed in there. This aint no Rocky Horror Picture Show (though I could jump to the left if I really wanted to)…anybody else catch in the old farty chapter one how Vincent was going to work the next day after he was killed only for chapter two to come along and say an entire weekend went by?

*Bends her knees in tight*

*Now it's the pelvic thrust*

*And it'll drive you insane*

Anybody? Anybody Am I old now? You young people with your internet and your internet…and your tablets to look at the internet…In my day we had dial up AOL and we had to wait ten minutes to load one page but we didn't care we were mystified…

We were like "The fuck is this magical wired box and what sort of sorcery does it bring?"

The one true answer…porn…it brings porn…

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He was beautiful in a way the alien couldn't accurately describe. The differences in what Zim considered attractive and what the human child's race liked were two very separate things.

By all means the younger boy shouldn't entice him the way he did. Dib was so fragile. If he wanted Zim could break the child in half with minimal effort. He'd do it fast too.

The brat wouldn't have even known he was in mortal peril until it was too late.

On top of his natural weakness he was pink around his edges, hairy in places he shouldn't have been and his body emitted very unsavory yet necessary expulsions.

Overall he was a nasty animal whose life merely amounted to a short blip in the whole scheme of the universe. He didn't matter.

If the human was lucky he would survive a handful of good years in health and spend another handful shriveling up waiting for death.

Dib, so inferior in every way yet Zim desired to possess him so badly that if he mulled over it too long it gave him a headache. He understood why emotions were so troublesome now.

Dib made him happy, a foreign feeling in the sense he never did anything solely for his enjoyment alone.

Everything he engaged in prior was always for the betterment of his species or to please his leaders. His happiness used to come from being accepted by his peers.

Now he simply enjoyed spending time with the dirt child on his own terms. It was making him possessive and jealous.

The frightening part about the whole ordeal was the alien's willingness to relinquish his sanity to these maddening feelings.

This all started after Zim freed himself from the restrictions encoded into his PAK. The changes he experienced from his tampering were as amazing as they were difficult to adjust to.

Nobody said evolution was easy though. It was worth all of the pain he endured. Zim as far as he knew was the first of his kind to break free from the machines which kept them enslaved.

He was no longer a drone programmed into a hive mind. He worried only for himself now and he took no more orders. He was as animate as an Irken could get.

Perhaps before the machines came along this was what his race was initially like. He speculated about the idea often.

If so then he could only imagine what was going through the ancient ones' minds when they decided to implant their bodies with metal and circuitry.

Obviously they predicted things might end up worse for their future generations from their meddling.

If they didn't, then why did Zim find coding in his own system that once decrypted set him on some kind of biological reassignment?

It was kind of like Dib's puberty only he was making up for two hundred lost years instead of a sparse set of sixteen.

His body went into overdrive even before his former rulers fried his hardware in an attempt to kill him. It was alright though. He had plans for them.

He had plans for this planet and its inhabitants as well. Living with Vincent gave him time to heal and scheme after his near demise.

Things were going normal enough until Friday when the teacher walked through the door. Powerful memories swept through Zim when he caught Dib's scent wafting from the man's bag.

Zim never used to be a creature who acted on instinct alone and here all of the sudden it became part of his everyday living. Needless to say he didn't handle his shit very well.

Not only did Vincent's bag smell like Dib, he also had a residual buildup on his body. It fueled Zim's irrational voracity. Dib was his. He didn't appreciate another stepping into his territory.

His host ended up more than a little dead, accidents happened he supposed. Zim was fortunate that his obsession fit nicely into his revenge plan.

Dib had access to the technology the alien needed for his schemes to be fully realized.

"Get off of me!" Dib shrieked.

The teenager squirmed underneath the alien. He was trapped. Zim forced him into a flat position on top of the desk with Zim looming hungrily over his body.

Zim couldn't hide the hurt in his voice. "Dib why are you struggling? It's me! Its Zim remember? I'm your best friend!"

"What are you doing disguised as my teacher Zim?"

"I'm merely trying to get close to you is all, how am I doing?"

He lowered his head closer to the teenager. Dib jutted his skull forward at the last moment. Zim caught the movement and pulled back before they collided.

"If you would calm down I could explain a few things."

The brat stopped flailing. He went slack. His breathing remained drawn out and panicked however. "Why didn't you just come to my house? Why did you waste all of this time coming to my Skool and pretend to be my teacher? You've been gone for…"

"Almost a year I know." Zim interrupted. "Look Dib you're not saying anything that I'm not already sorely aware of."

"Then what the fuck Zim? What are you doing?"

"I wanted to surprise you."

"You're such a liar."

Zim sighed. "Look Vincent was beset with an unfortunate accident and now he's gone let's not get caught up on him he's not important anyway."

"You're kidding right? You did something to him. What did you do to Mr. Pulmonic?"

Zim let out a few annoyed chirps at the child below. To Dib hearing those noises coming out from his teacher's lips, in his voice none the less was eerie.

"I killed him it's no big deal."

"You what?"

"Oh don't give me that innocent unaware victim crap Dib. You've always known that I kill. Humans, aliens, strange beings or otherwise it doesn't matter. I take life. I've taken more lives than you can ever imagine and you seem to have happily forgotten that fact every other time until now. Why is that I wonder?"

Dib didn't respond. He looked away more than a little overwhelmed by the alien's logic.

"Exactly. You were all righteous when I spent my days planning to wipe out your species yet it seemed perfectly acceptable to turn the other way once I changed my mind. You knew that I've murdered on plenty of other planets yet you decided to befriend me instead of pursue any sort of justice for those beings. You're not innocent so take your misguided anger somewhere else."

The teenager refused to add anything to the conversation yet again.

Zim's clicking noises started to whirr faster in his throat. "You know as long as you act like a child I'll treat you like one."

"Get away from me. I liked Mr. Pulmonic."

"That's exactly why he had to go Dib. I couldn't take your scent being all over him like that. It drove me crazy. Look I might have overreacted a bit what can I say? And as far as this charade goes, I thought we could have some alone time just you and me. I don't want to go to your house right now where your sister and father are, where their stink is overwhelming and their presence is even more invasive."

"Please get off I can't breathe with you nearly smothering me."

Zim continued his earlier admiration of the boy. He looked so pretty in his helplessness underneath him.

The lengthy teenager was a pale yet slightly pink thing whose thin body rivaled Zim's own. His wild black hair cascaded around his head while he laid flat pressed against the top of the desk.

Dib gave up his glasses years ago in favor of contacts so his amber eyes with the gold rings were no longer stuck behind a clunky set of frames.

His entire face was naturally more feminine in appearance. He had softer features overall in every manner. It was the curse of his genetics. There was nothing he could do to change it.

He tried to combat his lot by not shaving as thoroughly as he could. The last time Zim saw him he was sporting a good little patch of hairs on his chin.

Now the whiskers were spread across the lower part of his jaw all the way to his ears. He kept the whiskers tidy so they were a fine manicured line of black pointing towards his earlobes.

Underneath the teenager's chin was his protruding Adam's apple. It bobbed a few times while the brat fought to even his breathing.

Zim wanted to nip at the attractive bulge. If he did he figured he'd break the boy's skin easily seeing as how sharp his teeth were these days. He lowered his head down again.

Dib flinched away from him before he ever got close.

"Why? Why do you continue to struggle? You don't want me?"

Dib stopped when he heard the alien's voice crack. It hurt him thinking about Zim misinterpreting the situation. He was simply overwhelmed.

He needed an explanation about everything and he was still reeling about hearing of his teacher's murder from the very being holding him in place now.

He felt dirty looking up into a man's eyes who didn't exist anymore. Then there was the guilt thinking that as much as it upset him he simultaneously began accepting his passing for what it was.

The fact that he was willing to get over a murder made him feel even worse.

"Oh you know what, it's this ugly face isn't it? You don't want your teacher pawing all over you. Here let me show you a nifty trick that I didn't think I could do. Ah it's dim enough in here to go about our business. Light's a real bitch these days."

Zim begrudgingly moved away from the younger boy. He stood up and curled both hands' fingertips at his temples. He reinserted them into the pale flesh and pulled down.

Dib partially propped his body up on the desk to get a better look at what the alien was doing. He caught his breath. It was like watching something out of a horror movie.

The pale flesh Zim tore away revealed a light green layer underneath. He lifted up on the remaining skin flaps left behind from his tearing.

He ripped them completely away and discarded them off to the side. He repeated the gesture. More light green skin became visible.

He took his fingers now and placed them underneath the front layer of skin on his forehead. He pushed it out until the entire piece separated.

He rolled it down slowly this time to ensure it kept everything from peeling into separate pieces. While that happened his nose simply deflated as if it were a balloon having the air seep out.

Mr. Pulmonic's likeness disappeared in a few more careful tugs. The face underneath was nothing but smooth green.

It reminded Dib of the very first disguise Zim ever used when he arrived on Earth all those years ago. It wasn't a good one either. It was a bad wig along with a couple of shoddy contacts.

He left his skin untouched and he was too arrogant to admit to how stupid he was being. You could see that he didn't have a nose or ears for fuck's sake.

Of course in the alien's defense after he tampered with the little device on his back he started acting very different from the Zim Dib hated before.

Apparently whatever restriction he lifted increased his intelligence tenfold.

The teenager evoked his friend explaining with great enthusiasm about how he was not only physically growing but mentally maturing as well.

Dib realized after the change that Zim prior to his meddling wasn't mentally capable of acting his age.

It all made sense to him now why the once very tiny alien did certain things with little logic behind his actions.

He was a two hundred year old entity with the mental capacity of a delusional youngling. Zim tore his face mask completely off.

He flicked it away where it joined the rest of the putty like substance. "Is that a smile I see? It's first one you've graced me with yet."

Dib forced the upward turned corners of his cheeks into a more flat even line. Seeing his old friend shaping out before him was proving hard to resist.

He snapped out of his reverence as soon as the next part of the process began. Zim plucked the gray eyes out of his head.

He simply reached right in and picked them as if they were two ripe pieces of fruit which left gaping and leaking holes in the middle of the nose less green façade.

The rest of his body started to elongate. His teacher's torso kept getting lengthier while his limbs withered down almost to the bone.

The teenager tried to crawl away from the deformed shape. Something metal pierced the desk right next to his head.

The offensive thing was a long, flexible and numerously jointed automaton arm. The piece of machinery came jutting out from behind the alien's back where the metal pod resided.

The arm was about two inches thick in circumference. It was razor sharp at its tipped end which plunged into the desk so hard the entire surface began to split apart.

A second segmented arm joined the one sitting on the left side of the boy's face that came only inches from piercing him a moment before. This arm didn't bury itself in the desk.

This one snuck underneath the teenager's shirt. It gently ran the sharp point of its end across his chest back and forth as if it were trying to tickle him.

The gesture was light enough that it worked. The left arm unburied from its perch where it went about snaking down the hem of Dib's cargo pants.

It kept tunneling until it burrowed underneath the cotton of his boxers. Above him the transformation continued.

Zim's body kept growing and while it grew the pod on his back released a few unseen currents of electricity through his neurological system as well as a few visible ones on the outside portion of his head.

Dib saw the sparks flicker inside of the two gaping holes in the face that could no longer be considered his teacher.

The teeth inside of the face's large grin lengthened. They were becoming fine points while the wetness of the tongue changed from a clear liquid to a dark sludge.

The arm playing with the fabric of his boxers got bolder. The metal thing inched its way lower. Its cold surface graced over his penis which felt amazing and terrifying at the same time.

A few more minutes ticked by. The body above kept growing longer, thinner, though how that was possibly Dib didn't know.

It lost all of the remaining human traits that helped Zim pass as the deceased teacher.

The residual portions of scalp where the hair and ears connected sloughed off and down the back of the lengthening form.

It revealed a completely smooth bald head with only two insect like antennae that sprung up freely from their trappings.

Meanwhile the five fingers on his hands molded together into three fatter extensions. Those same digits started scratching at his own forearms which helped get the layer of flesh covering them to loosen.

Another electricity burst surged through the two open holes in the reshaped face. A moment later Zim's wet malleable eyes rolled into the empty sockets filling the gaps.

They doubled in size and settled all the way into place. His vision blurred a few times as the new orbs got used to their surroundings.

It seemed like there was still a glitch in his programming concerning his eyes. There were still no eyelids even after growing a complete new pair! It was frustrating.

He missed having eyelids. They were more important than he realized when he had them. They kept everything nice and lubricated.

Now his eyes only had this vicious membrane as their defense against the elements and it irritated him.

Everyone had their burdens to carry he supposed. The first thing he saw clearly again was the teenager getting assaulted by two of his PAK arms and the look over the boy's face was one of curiosity and revulsion rolled into one.

"What happened to you?" Dib breathed.

He wasn't sure what to make of the transformation. The tall grossly shaped thing couldn't possibly be his lost friend. Zim smirked at the boy. A new brightness filled his adjusting eyes.

Their color lightened up to a stoplight red. "I'm so tall now Dib. I'm the tallest Irken in all of my race! Isn't it wonderful?"

Dib thought about his next words carefully. As vivid as the alien's eyes were something didn't look right in them.

Zim wasn't all there and with him having two of his automaton arms out that could pierce through the boy at any given time; he was trying to think of a way to talk to Zim without agitating him.

"Yes it is. I know how much it means for you to be tall. Now you're taller than almost every human as well."

"I'm exactly seven feet and three inches."

Dib was impressed. The last time he saw his friend he barely cleared five feet. It upset Zim greatly.

Dib had to keep reminding him that it was better than the four feet he remained during Middle-Skool.

"Wow Zim that's incredible. It hasn't even been a full twelve months. Are you done growing now?"

"I think I have a few more inches and then I'll be finished. I wouldn't mind them that's for sure. It has been a challenge adjusting to this lengthened form I must admit. Vincent couldn't keep up with me that's for sure. I kept growing out of my clothing too quickly."

The mechanical arm in Dib's pants pressed down on his nether region.

"Zim!" It scared the shit out of Dib when he felt pain.

The dexterous piece of metal ceased its movements. "Oh sorry! Yeah they sometimes do that. They malfunction a little bit here and there."

Of all the things that could have been said those were not the words Dib wanted to hear the most.

He didn't want to know that the weapons coiled around him sometimes moved on their own without the host being aware.

Both arms slid away from the teenager. They didn't move back into their holding place.

They dug into the wood above Dib's head which provided support to the taller figure as Zim leaned over the desk once more.

Zim gingerly entwined his hands with Dib's own. He pinned the teenager's arms out away from his face. It was one of a small set of intimacy gestures that they shared.

The alien seemed to adore holding hands with the teenager. He initiated the contact frequently and he seemed perfectly content to keep their touch while they went about doing things.

Dib resisted briefly until a wave of lightheadedness overcame him. Their lips met after being separated for almost an entire year. It was an innocent enough kiss, more like a getting to know you activity.

The teenager deepened their bond first. His head kept swimming yet his body grew more alert with every touch. He licked against the sharp teeth accidently pricking his tongue.

A small droplet of blood came out from the wound. Zim's tongue darted out to lap at the copper tasting fluid. The youth bucked up against the thin figure. Their clothing frustrated him.

The alien let out a few metallic chortles. "You're as impatient as ever brat."

Zim used the support of his mechanical extremities to his full advantage. With them he had the ability to hover above his prize.

He released the boy's hands and lifted his body up enough to slip his eager fingers further down.

He wasn't a stranger to the brat's body. Zim unbuttoned the front of Dib's cargos and then pulled the zipper down quickly.

If it were some other time or the fact that he didn't see the boy for a year he would have slowed down.

He enjoyed savoring details. Today was not the day for any subtly. He wanted Dib so badly that he was shaking. He tugged the child's pants down past his thin hips.

"Hey wait we can't do it in the classroom."

Zim had to force his voice to remain even. "Why not?" he asked.

Dib ignored Zim's questioning at first. He ramble "We can't do this on top of my dead teacher's desk. I'm getting down to my bare ass right now with his murderer might I add."

Dib's words were playful instead of worried.

"You don't sound like you feel too bad about it."

"It's cause you've done something to my head. I feel so absurd all of the sudden and my mouth tingles."

Zim reached one claw into the front slit of Dib's cute little plaid boxers. He wrapped his digits around the teenager's semi hard shaft.

The three fingered claw wasn't nearly as cold as the metal appendages.

Dib grabbed Zim's arm. He opened his legs wider encouraging the alien to go further. Zim didn't need any special coercing to continue.

He fantasized about this moment more often than he wanted to admit. Zim had explored Dib intimately before. He enjoyed the way he could get the brat to squirm in his skilled hands.

He even used his tongue from time to time. Unfortunately that had been the extent of their sexual encounters. Zim had always felt intimidated by the idea of having sex.

He never did anything like it before. He never really had the urge to try until Dib entered his life. Once his change began the arousal Dib stirred in him grew immensely.

As much as he wanted to go all the way his inferiority complex keep winning over his desires. He was too short for one. Why would Dib want to mate with something so hideously inferior?

Sure he was lifetimes ahead of the child and yes he knew his race was superior in every facet. Dib happened to be the best of what his kind had to offer.

Zim was considered a defect to his species. It hurt his ego, that notion combined with his height problem left him unbearably shy.

Shyness was another one of those new emotions he didn't know how to handle. He didn't feel undermined in anyway now.

They were going to do this. He would finally have the little human all to himself in the most intimate way. Zim let out a contented murmur. Dib had never heard this noise before.

It sounded like a great sigh of relief. All of Zim's pent up aggressions left him. The calmer he got the more frenzied Dib became.

He squirmed painfully on top of the desk. He didn't know what to do. He wanted to force Zim to touch him in all the dirty ways his overstimulated brain could imagine.

Whatever Zim was doing to him was driving him further into a frenzy. He already felt deliriously high. He didn't have a comparison to go by. He never did drugs a day in his life.

He bet that this was a better fix than what any junkie could ever imagine. The only thing that kept him remotely focused were the three fingers inside his boxers.

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Julia opened the door to Mr. Pulmonic's classroom. She didn't know what had gotten into him today. He pretended like he didn't even notice her.

No matter how hard she tried to get his attention he barely batted an eyelash in her direction except when he needed her to solve an equation on the board.

She thought for sure that he wanted her up there to get a good personal look at her away from prying suspicion.

There would be no bother if he snuck a quick peek at her curves as she stood in front of his dry erase board.

She shimmied close to him so he could catch a whiff of the perfume she wore just for today. She stole it from her mother the night before. She loved the floral notes in the liquid.

The perfume also lingered on her skin much longer than any other brand she tried. She had spritzed it before and the results drove him crazy.

He told her how much he liked the perfume and that she should try to wear it more often. They agreed to meet up after school hours Monday.

She excitedly prepared all weekend for the moment. She really liked Mr. Pulmonic. A lot of her fellow students didn't. The majority of them thought he was weird.

There were a few select groups of girls who thought otherwise. He was a bit somber and hard pressed for Julia's taste sometimes. He made up for it with his overall good looks.

Mr. Pulmonic also had one of the sweetest demeanors in the entire school. He was polite. He never yelled at any of his students.

If there was a discrepancy with one of them he always kept his cool. His voice never went above an annoyed harrumph.

She couldn't remember when her crush on him started. It was early in the school year. She began having naughty little fantasies soon after.

She wondered what it would be like to have him take her on his lab equipment. She had never been with an older man either.

She was intimate with her ex who was sadly her own age. It was why they were broken up in the first place. Kyle was too immature.

Julia might have only been sixteen going on seventeen but she knew what she wanted better than everyone in her age bracket. She was far ahead of her years. She deserved someone on her level.

She decided to go for it. The worst case scenario would be his rejection or abhorrence to her advances. If he tried to get her in trouble she would claim that he tried to rape her.

She would never go down for a teacher no matter how sexy she thought they were.

Her flirting started innocently enough. She would find ways to linger near him or accidently brush against his body.

Her clothing got skimpier as the months advanced. He had to send her out of the class one day after she bent over and 'accidentally' revealed her panties to him.

She got a write up and good scolding from her parents. She backed off for a little bit then renewed her endeavor even more passionately.

She would draw cute little hearts and shit over her homework in colorful gel ink instead of the required blue or black fodder.

He had to pull her aside multiple times for a talk about her choice in inappropriate writing utensils.

She always asked for extra help on assignments that required her staying over the extended time in one class session.

For a long time it didn't seem like her advancements had any real effect on him.

She started to lose hope when one day out of nowhere he bumped into her in the hallway after hours while she was running late to leave.

He looked around to make sure nobody was watching before he lightly pushed her into her locker. He gave her a quick kiss on the lips before slipping several notes into her hand.

She still had those notes scrawled in his paltry chicken scratch. He was fully aware of her advances. He wanted to stop playing games.

She met up with him in his class after school the next day per his request.

One of the notes was addressed to her parents. It asked if he could have her stay over for a few hours for some extra tutoring seeing as her grade for his class wasn't all that good.

Her folks didn't think twice about the notion. They liked Mr. Pulmonic. All of the faculty and parents did. He always tried his hardest to teach their children.

They also liked his humble demeanor. He kept a careful watch over the pacing of his curriculum and he always offered extra help to those who needed it.

If a student wasn't passing his class it was their own damn fault. Julia had gotten a D in the first quarter another D in the second and was well on her way to an F for the third.

She hated chemistry. It bored her to tears. Her parents had gotten plenty mad at her apathy towards the subject.

If there was anything that could get her back on the right pace to a decent grade they were willing to try it. Her final mark for her third quarter was a solid C plus.

He didn't really grade her papers anymore. He glossed over them and chose an acceptable evaluation that kept her out of trouble yet also out of suspicion in any other light.

Nobody would believe in her getting extraordinary grades after one private tutoring session. If she were to suddenly get all A's that would have had an equally adverse effect.

She was looking at receiving a B for her final grade. He already told her about it. All he needed her to do was keep quiet and she could ride out the rest of the year peacefully.

She always looked forward to her sessions with him. Her parents were so happy to see results they agreed to the extra tutelage on a steadier basis.

Today was supposed to be their day. She was more than upset with him about his blatant rebuttal of her feelings. She feared the worst. What if he wasn't into her anymore?

When she saw him all dressed up in red with his hair slicked back she thought he was trying to change things up for her. His overall attitude was a lot different.

He was more confident borderline arrogant even. Anybody who dared to cross him was immediately kicked out of class before they could even bother to try and argue.

The whole lesson was soured as well. Julia didn't really care about the lab being canceled. She hated the hands on portions of chemistry more than the reading part.

He read almost the entire hour minus the few kids coming up to solve problems during his lecture. She volunteered as usual.

She slid purposefully out of her chair and walked as seductively as she could without looking like a complete nutjob in front of the entire class.

The entire time she was up writing her answer she caught him making sour faces at her out of her peripheral. He crinkled his nose before pulling several tissues out of their box sitting on his desk.

He held the tissues over his mouth and nose until she sat back down. She stared at him brazenly for a few seconds while he lowered the tissues away from his face following her departure.

If looks could have killed she would have been dead ten times over. His gray eyes lowered in her direction. He glared at her for a long pregnant moment right before he called out her answer.

She was wrong apparently. He made sure to be as big of an ass as he possibly could be about it. The way he scoffed at her honest mistake embarrassed her.

She had every intention on laying into him today. She didn't know if he had a bad weekend or not. It didn't give him any reason to treat her so poorly.

She entered the threshold. She walked several feet before stopping completely mid stride. She gasped at the sight before her.

There were two intertwined figures on Mr. Pulmonic's desk. She could barely comprehend what was going on before her eyes.

One of the shapes was so indistinguishable she didn't even have enough room in her thoughts to mull over the second more familiar body.

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Ahahaha…shit them cliffhangers are mean. Sorry but my brain hurts. It's been a long time. I still feel like this tale has potential and as I write (and rewrite) it's slowly getting better.

So did anyone guess that Pulmonic was sexing up his underage female students? See what I said there? Female students as in a plural amount of students…guess he wasn't such a great guy after all…


	4. And then he left

Guys have you seen all up on the interwebs about Jhonen making an Invader Zim comic?

It's not exactly what I wanted but I'll take it. Like as long as he's able to FINISH THE GODAMN STORY I'll be ok…

I have a suggestion Jhonen make it ZADR! Bwahaha…ehh it's funny cause he hates alot of his fanbase…

Whew sorry there I was getting passionate.

So yeah lots of out of character goodness which has been going on for the whole thing I know.

Imma try to keep the cornballiness out as much as I can but alas there has to be some to further the story.

This sterling tale I'm weaving…

And to the guest reviewer who suggested I revamp my story description you're absolutely right. I suck at summaries and titles for things in all of my writing. This is a crutch I've known. I'm going to try to make it better…for you cause you're beautiful…everyone who reads my little story is…

Please review me, I'm a review slut…I can admit it…

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Zim's long segmented tongue pushed into Dib's eager mouth. The alien grabbed ahold of the back of Dib's neck and forced their faces together as far as they could go.

Dib was so drugged up on the strange chemicals and pheromones running through his senses he didn't even notice the steady amount of blood pooling into his mouth.

The blood came from him cutting his tongue and inner cheeks on the sharp needlepoints Zim used for teeth. Dib only felt lightheaded and careless in his friend's stronger hold.

If he were more aware of the situation he might have questioned the overall strangeness of the moment. He knew Zim was never the overly affectionate type.

As it was, he could honestly care less about anything except for the tingling sensations happening in his mouth. Their kiss was sloppy and desperate.

Zim's tongue inched its way further into Dib. He let out a series of whirring clicks which the teenager interpreted as happy noises.

Zim must have not been used to using his vocal chords to produce such a high pitch before. He coughed several times directly into Dib's mouth.

It broke the complete spell cast over Dib. Something gooey passed between their openings. Dib started gagging on the slimy yet sort of sticky globule.

It forced Zim to break apart from him so he could get some air. His little human was choking on whatever jammed itself into the back of his throat.

Dib took in several greedy gasps of air but didn't find relief. All of the blood exuding from his cut up mouth drained into him as well.

It tasted like copper pennies and black coffee. It was sharply bitter to his taste buds. Zim rubbed at Dib's Adam's apple with his thumb in an attempt to coerce the blockage in his airways down.

Dib's eyes started to water. He swallowed as hard as possible. The inner walls of his throat finally expanded enough to allow the invasive slime ball to pass.

While this happened Zim turned his head and coughed again away from Dib as his human managed to catch his breath. He didn't know what was going on. He felt sickly all of the sudden.

Zim noticed the female who entered the classroom. How long was she standing there? The alien's eyes shifted effortlessly from their lively brightness into a dark burgundy.

He curled both lips into a grimace which revealed his sharp teeth. He slowly lifted up off Dib pinned beneath him on the desk.

The girl who violated his and Dib's intimate moment stood completely still near the door she had entered. She was pretty.

She had long auburn hair, light brown eyes and some of the most delicate facial features Zim had ever seen in a human.

He remembered her from earlier in the morning. She was the one who smelled so repulsively sweet he was forced to cover his nose with a wad of tissue whenever she walked by.

Dib followed Zim's line of sight. He was forced to sit up further on his elbows so he could get a clear view of what was causing the problem.

It took a few seconds for his hazy mind to put the pieces of the situation together. He gently touched Zim's arm with his fingers in an attempt to regain his attention.

He continued wheezing throughout the exchange.

"Zim calm down." He rasped.

If Zim heard him, he did a fantastic job of not acknowledging his plea. The tall serpent like figure stole away from him in flash.

Zim was using his long mechanical appendages to give him an extra boost of speed in his stride.

He only had the two arms these days.

He used to have four but after his system fried only two had been reprogrammed so far.

The useless limbs remained tucked away in his PAK. As much as he kept trying to get them to work he still hadn't managed to find the problem.

He wasn't too worried on the account he now had Dib and all of the resources the brat had access to. He'd be up and running to full capacity in no time.

The teenage girl barely managed to jump out of the way of the thing hurtling towards her. She hit the floor hard on her hands and knees.

Zim stopped short of plowing headfirst into the door. Lucky for him she had closed it all the way behind her when she entered the classroom.

He spun around and shot one of his automaton limbs out after her. Julia screamed when she felt something pierce into her right calf.

The metal arm pulled her back almost an entire foot before she let out another shrill cry.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up." Zim violently brought her even closer to him by her impaled calf.

Dib tried to get off of the desk. His wobbly legs didn't want to cooperate. He tripped and caught himself on its edge.

He was thrown into a fit of deep belly gagging which almost made him throw up. He managed to fight the gross shit wanting to come up.

He was forced to lean on the desk while he pulled up his pants. It was hard to get things adjusted while sporting biggest hard on he ever had in his life. He called out to his friend.

"Zim stop! What are you doing? Leave her alone!"

"Dib lower your voice. Do you want someone to hear us?"

"Let her go!" Dib's entire body felt like warm dough. All he wanted more than anything was to be spoiled again by Zim's ministrations to his sex and he hated himself for it.

It only took minutes for him to give into Zim and all of his infatuated touches. He used to have better restraint.

He sucked in enormous amounts of life giving air and it helped clear his jumbled thoughts. He continued with equally satisfying results.

Things were easier when he wasn't breathing in the potent invisible waves of toxins Zim kept blowing into his face.

He didn't know what to be more pissed off about; the fact Zim was using chemical trickery to get his way or Dib knowing he was being fooled yet not really caring about the deception.

Zim's free metal leg poised over the back of Julia's head. She looked over her shoulder at the last moment right before he brought the deadly appendage down full force.

It hit her with bone crushing pressure in her cheek. Her face collapsed around the object piercing through it.

One of her eyeballs blew out of its socket and only remained connected by a string of exposed nerves. Her teeth involuntarily chattered as she went through her final death throws.

The alien enjoyed the way the girl's blood pooled underneath her while her entire body flopped helplessly. It served the silly bitch right for interrupting his time with Dib.

Zim lifted his mechanic leg up. The teenage girl was stuck on it. It had completely impaled her through to the other side of her face.

He placed his oxford on her shoulder then pushed down on the corpse as hard as he could to pry his appendage free. At first he didn't think it was going to happen.

After several edgy seconds his mechanical arm pulled away. As soon as they were separated all of her cranium's mushy insides slopped out of the gaping hole left behind.

Zim let her fall ungracefully to the floor; the kill was especially satisfying. He hated the girl from the first moment he first saw her.

Whenever he had a particular disliking for someone it always warmed his mood when an opportunity to hurt them arose.

He clicked a satisfied little chirp before shifting his attention back to more important priorities.

"Dib what are you-"

Dib swung his leg over an open classroom window. He was thankful the Science Wing resided on ground level.

Zim was too occupied to notice him make his way over to the windows where he planned to make his escape.

This wasn't what he wanted. He couldn't help the poor dead girl. He knew later when he was far away from the deformed shape that claimed to be his best friend he'd succumb to guilt over not doing anything.

He couldn't let himself fall so easily for this…monster. How many years had he spent obsessing and living solely around what Zim did?

It was a disconcerting amount. He was willing to accept those times if it meant something worthwhile came from them.

When Zim started changing Dib got to see the real being underneath all of the bullshit. He liked this Zim, the one who called him a brat and was so awkward when it came to expressing his innermost desires it almost crippled him.

There was something there worth salvaging. Zim made it easy when he said he was done with trying to take over the planet.

He claimed his interests had gone somewhere else. He didn't feel like everything depended on whether or not he pleased his empire.

Looking at Zim's tall emaciated frame broke Dib's heart. Whatever happened to cause this destroyed any good emerging out from him.

The teenager still wanted to run over to Zim's eager clutches. He wanted to love this walking husk. He couldn't though. This wasn't the same incredible being he knew from before.

He doubted even Zim had any kind of clue on what he wanted either. His feelings could have been a byproduct of some anomaly for all Dib discerned.

The worst part about the whole thing was Zim killing again. Yes it was hypocritical to give him a pass on his previous misdeeds simply because he swore he was done.

Dib really believed in him for a moment he'd keep to his word. Now two people were dead; his teacher and an innocent girl.

Both died for stupid bullshit. If Dib were stronger he could have stopped this from happening.

The alien tilted his head to the side inquisitively.

His eyes were a tumulus swirl of darkening hues. He'd gone beyond the wine color they could be. They were turning an ugly shade of dull brown like the way blood faded over time.

He refused to believe Dib was trying to run from him now. Hadn't he proven his fidelity? Wasn't that what humans wanted? As much as he would have enjoyed not feeling anything for Dib he couldn't stop his passions now.

There were so many things left for them to do together. He chose the teenager to be his, well, his what exactly-companion, friend, cohort…lover?

As soon as the word entered Zim's mind the film over his thoughts cleared. Love was a dangerous thing mankind dabbled in.

It ruined most of the dirt crawlers yet, they were a lot like Irkens in this way now as he thought about it.

Most humans in the species were myopic dullards who were to self-centered to share a life together.

Irkens were no better. They were programmed machines built to serve one purpose. As much as Zim hated this comparison it was fair.

Outside of the empire none of them actually cared for each other at all. They tolerated one another enough to keep things running.

There was no empathy between them only a drive to compete like animals. If he weren't experiencing such an array of excitement he wouldn't have considered these thoughts to be credible.

Was this the human condition Dib had spoken of before? The need to fill in empty places with as many experiences as one could fit?

Perhaps he had the dirt crawlers all wrong? Maybe they were right about a few things. This was an awful feeling, the worst he'd come across yet.

He was lonely wasn't he? He was so forlorn after his hardware crashed. For a long time he didn't remember anything outside of excruciating pain.

When his memories did return there were still good chunks of information missing. Remembering Dib made him the happiest. He didn't know why until now.

He liked all the nights they wasted staring up at the stars together. He enjoyed the outings Dib coaxed him into doing.

The Arcade was one of their favorite places to spend money on mind rotting junk for example. Once the two of them broke the barrier of kissing each other Zim couldn't get enough of it.

He didn't care about melting. He liked the intense sensations of pain and pleasure. Things kept progressing and he wished now he didn't waste so much time worrying about certain physical setbacks.

They could have explored each other more personally a long time ago.

"I love you."

The teenager froze. The statement hung out in the air for a long moment as he took in Zim's words.

Finally Dib responded. "Zim I don't think you know what you're talking about. You said it yourself that love was a human concept. You didn't believe any other race experienced such nonsense."

"I was wrong. I've never been surer about anything in my life. Now come here. We both know you want to be with me as much as I want you."

Dib almost did what Zim demanded. He stopped when he noticed a large lump on the floor near the alien. He almost forgot about the dead girl. He was so thrown off by Zim's confession.

And what about Mr. Pulmonic? He killed his teacher as well. He broke all of the promises he made to Dib about not hurting people. This was wrong. All of it was wrong.

This wasn't how things were supposed to be. He always thought they would eventually leave Earth behind together.

Zim said he didn't mind the idea of taking the teenager away from his planet he wanted to go. Zim was supposed to take him to all the places he often dreamed about.

"Maybe you should just leave the planet. You were gone for almost a year anyway. You're more toxic for Earth than anything."

"That's not fair!" Zim shrieked momentarily forgetting to keep his voice down.

Dib was floored by the desperation oozing out of his friend. He'd never seen Zim like this. Zim was a lot of negative things. He was impulsive, demanding and bitter in his core.

It was always going to be a part of him and Dib felt like he was capable of dealing with it. He couldn't cope with this new foreboding impression.

In his heart he knew Zim was up to something wicked again. He couldn't give in to what the alien wanted. This must be some kind of elaborate ruse to gain his subservience.

He wasn't a toy. Zim always thought humans were below him. It didn't make sense for him to claim he was in love with a person.

"I died." Zim's voice cracked. "My entire system was decoded. I was shut down along with my base. Everything was wiped out. I shouldn't be here."

"I know. When I came looking for you there was no visible trace left of your home. I thought you might have decided to leave Earth and not tell me. How did you survive?"

"My robot companion saved me. I don't exactly know how but I when I woke up, even though I had no idea who or what I was, I still felt terrible when I had to abandon the little tin can. He gave me all of his energy I suppose. I also think I had a version of my personality copied into him. I went thru a complete system meltdown after all. There shouldn't have been a way for me to come back. We were still connected by our cables when I came to. I miss Gir. He was a handful but he always made me laugh and he came through for me when I needed him most. Anyway it's all immaterial now. What matters to me is what I do with this new life. I'm going to be unstoppable."

"Then go do whatever it is you're planning on doing. Leave Earth out of it." Dib chided.

Zim didn't say anything. Dib shook his head in disbelief. He almost laughed. He'd been a fool to ever trust Zim. He considered him a friend.

He hated the wetness accumulating in his eyes It made his contacts burn. Zim took a few shy steps towards Dib. His natural instincts told him to lie to the brat.

He could try to lure him with words back into his clutches. He couldn't though and he knew it. Dib was too smart for petty lies.

It was why he bothered to get him alone in the first place like this. He knew if he dumped enough chemicals into the teenager's blood he could keep him hypnotized.

He had every intention of manipulating Dib for a long while. He felt guilt, then quickly stomped it out with false rationalization. It was for the brat's own good.

As much as Dib liked to think he was ready for the universe he wasn't. He was one little sixteen year old boy who had no idea what kind of evil went on out there.

There were plenty of terrible races humans couldn't even hold a light to. Even the cruelest person on Earth would never be able to match the brutality of other species.

Zim's race sat high up on the list. He knew his kind. They wouldn't leave Earth alone forever. They'd eventually come here of their own accord and the humans would fall at a later time.

Humanity had a better chance with Zim than his old Empire. It was one or the other. There could be no in between.

He wanted to keep Dib safe not only from outside influences but also from himself as well. His self-righteous behavior would only get him killed.

Zim knew what was best for Dib. He'd keep his human in a stupor forever if that's what it took to save him.

The alien covered more of the distance quickly. The boy kept rubbing at his eyes which made for a good distraction. Zim could smell salty excretions coming from them.

It mixed with the chemical odor coming off his contact solution. His sense of smell was beyond anything Dib could comprehend.

It came back fully over the last few days. His new unconventional coding accelerated it to hyper levels of sensitivity.

He preferred the natural scent of his human leaking over the solution. Zim was almost completely on top of Dib now.

Dib was a mixture of feelings. He was so queasy. His bleeding mouth stung. He was also in the beginning throws of a bad migraine.

He fought against his sickly condition with everything in his being. He focused on Zim and realized how close he wandered. He was almost within reaching distance.

Zim went for it. He lashed out towards Dib. Dib produced a small uncapped bottle of hand sanitizer from his cargo pocket. Zim thought he was so smart.

Dib really was crying for a brief moment. He saw it as an opportunity to trick the alien. He kept rubbing at his eyes with one free hand while he twisted off the cap of the sanitizer with his other.

He figured his display would distract Zim enough to not detect what he was doing. Zim grabbed him and lowered his head to Dib. As soon as he did this Dib flung the bottle's contents at Zim's face.

The smell alone would have made the alien recoil. Zim screamed loud enough to probably alert everyone in the entire building.

"It burns! What did you do? My eyes!" Zim's vision blurred and he fumbled back.

He tripped up on his own damn feet. He crashed into a nearby desk which sent the tall gangly form sprawling on the ground.

He didn't have any eyelids. He couldn't blink or close his eyes to help wash out the horrid shit burning his retinas.

"Why did you do this to me? I can't see!"

He couldn't feel or smell Dib's presence either. Dib was gone. Zim only saw blurs. Intangible blobs of color danced across his vision.

As his eyes continued to burn mercilessly his mind went in a thousand different directions.

_He was back in the cold crawling around barely able to function. He had to break into a basement just to escape the biting wind._

_The chilly basement barely provided any kind of protection. It was better than nothing though. _

_He could barely walk. _

_He had to scuttle across the ground as quick as he could in order to hide underneath the stairs when he heard a man open a door from somewhere above._

_He wanted to be left alone. If he was going to die he needed to be able to do it in peace. He got on his knees and prepared to grab at the first thing he could. _

_The stairs were the kind of ones he could reach in between. The lights went on. The weight distribution in the steps went crazy as their owner descended down them._

_He was almost at the bottom when Zim reached out and grabbed his ankle. It made the man trip. He fell down the last few stairs face first. _

Why was it that he could never stand proudly on his own two feet? There was a time when he did. It was before he came to this wretched place. This planet had beaten him down.

His race had turned on him. Dib hurt him. Zim's eyes were steaming as they tried to cope with the foreign substance. Their color darkened. They were no longer any tone of red. They went completely black.

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Poor Zim…

But more importantly poor Dib…

Poor little fucker…


	5. Baby Blues?

I had the shittiest month in March…and in April…and part of May…well shit I've just had a shitty spring in general I guess. I'm so tired.

Started working a second job, which isn't the problem cause I love money…it's my stupid fuckhead boss at my overnight job…he's such a tool I just want to hit him with bus and break his ass.

That's what I wish for on people who are awful. I hope everyone who's a shitlord breaks their arseholes so they have to lay around in an ass cast.

I have his number in my phone and I labeled him as Fart Knocker. So when he calls or texts me Fart Knocker is calling or texting me.

Next thing is my car needed a five hundred dollar fix, and then other things in life happened and I'm just like 'uh this can stop anytime.'

I'm going to try to update the best of my ability. Before I was just lazy now it's all gone tits up. Tits up I tell you.

I have no idea what I'm doing with this fic…I just had certain images in my head and I decided to go a different way than my original intentions…now I'm winging it…

At first I was like Oh Zim would make a great spider creature, then he kinda evolved into a nasty cricket bug and now he's The Thing…so yeah…

And please forgive the bad grammar and other general bad writing…I need to find time to sit down and comb through the chapters to edit them better the way I have obsessively done with the first chapter. I just figure I'll get some stuff out to read first and do my best as I go along.

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A teenage girl wobbled through the hallways of Hi-Skool. Zim, who now crudely wore the skin of his latest victim, fell into a set of lockers off to the left and it made him pause.

He coughed noisily. No matter how hard he tried he couldn't catch his breath. Something in the pit of his stomach kept threatening to come up. He fought it down as best he could.

What was happening? He had never felt sick like this before. His race didn't contract illness like other species.

There was only a handful of times he could remember throwing up and those were caused by being overindulgent with his food; self-inflicted gluttony.

He punched a locker out of anger. The metal door immediately folded in from the forceful blow.

He attempted to stand up and doubled over as pain began to radiate from somewhere deep inside his guts.

Zim fell onto his hands and knees and started gagging. He heaved and nothing came up at first except for trapped air which caused him to belch.

The second time caught Zim off guard. He opened his mouth wide. A steady stream of bile and slime came spewing out. He hovered over the blackish mess panting.

He couldn't see very well on the account of Dib throwing that horrible sanitizer crap into his eyes. He didn't have proper time to let them heal or replace them with another set for the time being.

The world was a blurry mess yet he thought he spotted something strange in the middle of the slop pile beneath. He dipped a couple fingers into the hot gooey remnants of his insides.

"What is…" The alien trailed off.

Something wriggled beneath Zim's touch. He snapped his hand back momentarily out of shock. He stared at a small body rolling around.

He didn't need any distinct detail to have an idea about what he was looking at. Curiosity won over. He delicately wiped sludge off of a tiny body.

The little one he observed was no bigger than a quarter. Zim gingerly scooped the tiny figure into his palm.

He brought it closer to get an in depth look. The diminutive being was more developed than he gave it credit for. It was altogether whole.

He could see individual digits, claws and toes; an intact head which had all distinctive facial features including a gasping mouth, two iridescent eyes and flattened antennae.

As he kept brushing off sludge Zim realized he could see all innards of this baby, or was it some kind of genetic clone? Was it merely a separate version of himself? Could he possibly have that kind of ability?

Zim knew he was both sexes with his male side dominating more over his female parts. It determined how his voice sounded and the way his body developed.

He knew he had the ability locked away to have offspring through intercourse. He had both genitalia despite only appearing to have a slit in between his legs.

His male parts were merely hidden away from outside influences. Over the last few months he acted on strong instinct.

It was all part of his plan. He didn't anticipate this however. Whatever this little one in his hand was, Zim felt a weird connection to it.

It bothered him to know it wouldn't survive outside in the open air like this. It was a part of Zim whether he understood it or not.

His thoughts suddenly went to Dib.

"Oh no." Zim whispered.

In the middle of their moment together he had coughed something into Dib's mouth and he hoped it wasn't what he thought. The little Irken fetus in Zim's hand went slack.

Zim shoved the stillborn back into his mouth. He gobbled it up almost as quickly as he expelled it out. When he bit down its jellylike body explode inside his mouth.

It tasted foul. He had to do it. He wouldn't leave such a delicate part of himself behind. For the moment Zim felt a lot better though now he wasn't sure how long it would last.

He had to get to Dib. It was the only thing that mattered right now. If Dib was somehow an incubator for whatever this was, he needed to make him aware.

Zim knew human males were not designed for carrying offspring which meant that he could be in serious trouble.

This wasn't what Zim wanted. He never meant for something like this to happen. Why couldn't Dib for once see things his way? Why did he have to care about the brat's opinion in the first place?

Zim slowly got back up. He was almost to his feet when he heard several audible gasps. He fought the urge to moan. He didn't have time for this.

He looked at whoever was unfortunate enough to be walking down the same hallway. He couldn't see their distinctive features and he could have cared less.

The alien sized them up by smell alone. Both figures were male. They reeked of sweat and testosterone.

From what he could tell, they both appeared to be big and meaty. Perhaps a couple of those jock types Zim remembered from his wasted time spent pretending to be a student.

"Hey are you ok?" One of them asked.

"You just puked all over the floor." The other said.

Both boys looked at each other then back to the girl partially slumped against the lockers. They couldn't see her face at all on account of her long wild hair draped in front of her countenance.

It wasn't even the creepiest thing about her. She was disproportionate for one, gangly and tall, much taller than normal girls.

She had enormous dark splotches covering the exposed flesh on her arms and legs. As they kept observing they realized although she was grossly thin her limbs seemed to be swollen in places as if infection had set into her body.

It was hard to make sense of the disgusting mess she was covered in. She wore some kind of torn suit which didn't fit all too well.

It hugged in all the wrong places and was simultaneously to baggy everywhere else.

Her entire front side was coated in black brown mucus. There was also distinctive smears of red mixed throughout as well.

The teenage boys didn't know what to make of her. This girl looked like she'd crawled out of a swamp, someplace damp and muddy.

"Fuck." The brunette of the pair said.

"Hey girl what happened?" The other boy asked. He had a mop of curly blond locks.

Zim chuckled. He could smell their fear. He loved it. It was what he always wanted. He desired to be strong and intimidating.

"What's so funny?"

Zim didn't answer the question. He kept laughing. It grew louder until he had to squeeze on his stomach as it started cramping.

Here he was as frightening as he dreamed about but not in the way he wanted to be. He thought he would have been what other Irkens regarded as a perfect soldier by this point in life, not some kind of viscous slug which came crawling out of gutter.

"Just go away." He finally said. "You should run now while you still have the opportunity."

Both teenagers finally noticed a gross trail of black sludge behind this girl. It led all the way down the hall going towards the science wing of all places.

"I'm calling the cops."

Zim ran his hands through his crude disguises long hair. He moved the sticky strands out of his face.

The teenagers put distance between themselves and the girl. They were shouting obscenities. Zim walked towards them.

"Fuck this! I'm out of here!" The brunette took off running down the hall with his blond friend following close behind.

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Dib stopped for a moment to catch his breath. He scanned the area to make sure if anything or anyone strange caught his eye.

He was alone. He was standing on a sidewalk near a cluster of quaint looking houses. Dib knew that inside them were normal folks going about their everyday lives without any knowledge of the danger lurking around.

Dib envied these people. He wished he could be as ignorant as they were. For all of his knowledge he didn't have a positive answer for what he should do next.

He didn't want to involve anybody lest they get hurt. It meant keeping to himself and not reaching out for any external help.

He could only guess at how well Zim was going to be able to track him, if that was what he was going to do at all.

Dib had already gone through a list of possibilities of what the alien could do. The most logical course of action scared the teenager more than anything.

If Zim wanted to get to Dib easier he would bypass any chasing and go straight to Dib's house to intercept him.

He had to call his sister…tell her to leave…try to convince dad to do the same thing if he was there. Dib searched through his cargo pants for his cellphone.

"You've got to be kidding me." He tore through each pocket several times to make sure he wasn't overlooking where his phone could be.

It wasn't there. He knew he had put it in one of his pockets! He always kept his phone close by. Zim must have taken it. He could have easily stolen the device when Dib was under his influence.

He couldn't get worked up over it. He needed to approach this with a level head. Maybe he should reach out for a second and use someone's phone.

If Zim was watching Dib now he doubted the alien would make a move out in the open like this, not with so many potential witnesses.

If he used himself as bait he could probably lure Zim away from others before something terrible happened.

He had to try. He needed to get his sister and father out of danger. Dib ran up to the nearest house. He pressed its doorbell button. Nothing happened. He knocked on the door then waited.

He could have sworn he heard a body shuffling around inside.

"Hello?" He called out. "Is anyone home?"

He banged his fist against the front door several more times. He listened and heard the same scratchy noises as before only they seemed to be a little quicker.

"Please. I need to use a phone. It's an emergency."

A metallic click followed Dib's words. He almost jumped out of his spot on the porch. It sounded so close to the utterances of what Zim could produce.

He thought for a wild second that the deformed alien was about to attack. When he realized it was nothing more than a door lock sliding out of place he relaxed.

The door in front of him opened. A face appeared in the small sliver of space in its frame.

"What were you saying?" A deep male voice asked Dib. "You were shouting something I couldn't hear all the way."

"Uh…yeah I need to use a phone. My cellphone died and it's an emergency."

A gawky man filled in the doorway now. He looked a lot like Dib if the teenager were older and slightly shorter.

Dib's first impression about this man was that he must be anorexic or something along those lines. He was so pasty and gaunt it made him hard to look at.

He had large comic like eyes with dark brown almost black pupils. His eyes looked a little wild and the bags underneath them helped accentuate how stressed they appeared.

What made shivers run through Dib's spine was his hairstyle. He almost had to double take to make sure he was seeing things correctly.

The man's head was shaved close to his scalp. He had almost no hair except for two strange bangs he left untouched. They looked exactly like an insects antennae.

He wore a dark black and gray striped hoodie with tight black pants which left little to the imagination.

Overall he looked like a strung out drug addict. He had a few open sores around his mouth and nose to help fuel Dib's assumption.

"I got a phone you can use." The man answered. His voice was a lot more baritone than a person of his stature should have.

"It's in the house if you want to step inside for a moment."

Dib hesitated. This man didn't fit the surrounding area at all. He didn't even fit his own home. It was so normal outside. There was nothing foreboding about it on its surface.

Dib would expect a man who looked like this to be living in a much more derelict environment.

"Hey do you want to use my phone or not?" The man asked.

"Yes I do want to use it."

The man nodded. "It's a landline. I know it's probably stupid to still have one these days. I don't go out much so it makes sense for me."

"That's fine I just need to call my dad. My car died and wouldn't you know I forgot to charge my cellphone. It ran out of juice right when I needed it most."

Dib made sure to put false enthusiasm behind his lie. This imaginary car needed to sound like it was his whole world. For normal teenagers who were still developing in every way it wasn't too farfetched to imagine.

"See that's why I don't like cellphones. They aren't reliable. You've got to babysit them. People paying all this money for these portable letdowns…" The man didn't finish his thought.

Dib nodded. He didn't agree with the guy but he needed this to move along. He had to call his sister, the sooner he could get ahold of her the better.

"You might be right." He said.

"Come on in."

Dib timidly followed where the man walked. He led the teenager thru a barren living room into an equally depressing kitchen. Dib knew better than to comment on what he observed about the man's house.

It wasn't his place to make hasty assumptions let alone vocalize them. Besides the guy was helping him. He should be grateful.

"Here you are." The man gestured to an old rotary machine hanging on one of the tar stained walls.

The ugly thing was some kind of off puke green color. It looked like it had come straight out of an old seventies magazine ad. The man wasn't kidding about being dated on things.

"Hey I didn't even catch your name."

"It's Dib. It's kind of a dumb I know."

"I'm Johnny."

"Well Johnny it's nice of you to let me use your phone like this."

Dib took the phone off the line. It felt sticky to his touch like it hadn't had been wiped down in a long while. He kept the phone away from his cheek.

He gingerly dialed with the old rotary numbers one at a time until he completely entered his sister's cell number.

He waited as it rang. He cursed when she didn't pick up.

"Hey it's me. You need to uh…" Dib trailed off. He couldn't leave the kind of message he wanted on the account of Johnny listening in.

"I'll call again."

Dib dialed his sister's number two more times and each time he was sent to voicemail. He tried calling his father and that proved to be fruitless as well.

"Shit…" Dib mumbled under bated breath. He was going to have to run home as quick as possible. It was the only thing he could do at this point.

"Do you want me to take a look at your car?" Johnny offered.

"What? Oh no it's fine. I can call the police I guess or maybe some kind of towing company."

"I don't have a phonebook for you to look anything up."

"Ok."

"I also don't have any internet to use either."

"Right well if that's the case I'm going to go ask one of your neighbors then. They must certainly have something I could benefit from. I appreciate you letting me try to call."

Dib began walking towards the living room.

He stopped a few feet in mid stride. He looked over his shoulder. Johnny had opened one of the drawers beneath the sink and started loudly rummaging through its contents.

"Yeah?" Johnny asked.

For a second Dib's heart had leapt into his throat. He got all sorts of unpleasant imagery in his head about what the bizarre anorexic was rooting for in there.

When Johnny pulled out a small notepad and half chewed pencil Dib physically unwound. He was ready to fight this guy if he did anything unsavory.

He had gone toe to toe with an alien menace before. He wouldn't let some guy living in a grimy house be his undoing.

"Oh nothing. Never mind thanks for your help again." Dib was out the door before Johnny could get another word in.

Johnny smiled as he wrote down two different numbers on the first blank piece of paper he could find.

He pocketed the notepad. He went over to a worn messenger bag laying on the kitchen table. He pulled out a basic black flip phone he was currently using as his new temporary portable line.

He followed where Dib went. As he made his way out of the house he dialed the first number he wrote down. The line picked up. A girl's voice filled Johnny's ear.

"Dib what's going on?" The female's voice began. "Why aren't you calling me from your cellphone?"

Johnny didn't reply.

"Hello Dib? What was with the abrupt message anyway? Are you in trouble? You should have been home by now. That dumb show you like has a marathon on and I know you wouldn't miss it."

When Johnny didn't respond a second time the girl became agitated. "Seriously I can hear you breathing. Is this some kind of joke? It's not funny I was worried about you."

The line went dead. Johnny called the second number he wrote down. This line didn't pick up. The voicemail was a generic automated message so Johnny couldn't get any kind of idea of who it was Dib was trying to get ahold of here.

It didn't matter much now. He spotted Dib in the distance walking down the street. He wasn't knocking on anyone else's door.

He figured as much. The boy was a terrible liar. Something else was going on. His car didn't break down. The kid looked young enough to not possess a license yet.

Plus the first number he dialed wasn't a male. It was a girl. He hadn't called his father right away like he claimed he would.

To say Johnny was interested was an understatement. He had heard Dib's name before; he had heard it a several times now.

He used to not believe in things like fate. After enduring some rather bizarre trials as of late it got Johnny to question his beliefs.

The way he had come about hearing the boy's name was an anomaly all on its own. He'd heard it uttered by a monster he'd seen crawling in the city's alleyways.

_He shuttered at the first memory of seeing the monster's elongated body coil around a helpless women it chose as prey. _

_The women's screams only fell on Johnny's ears. The first time he thought he imagined the being. He wanted to help the lady being attacked. The frightening unknown thing kept him frozen in place._

_She was wriggling around in its clutches, after a few moments of struggle she went slack. She wasn't dead though. He watched as her attitude immediately switched over._

_She started groping on the thing and rubbing herself against its emaciated frame. It pulled down the woman's pants and flipped her around. She seemed more than eager to obey now. _

_The whole display made Johnny very uncomfortable. He could tell she was under some kind of hallucinogen or something along those lines. _

_The thing had tricked her into enjoying its ministrations. The fact was, she was being raped and not comprehending what was really going on. _

_If she had her wits still intact she would have probably been hysterical by this point. Johnny wasn't a holy person. He was out that night stalking around for his own victims. _

_The difference between Johnny's atrocities and this thing was that he stalked and killed sometimes out of necessity, or he murdered scum who deserved it. _

_Yes every once in a while a good person would come under his scrutiny. Johnny always made sure to get the job done quickly. _

_He wasn't about torturing good people who accidentally crossed paths with him. He also abhorred sexual violence. _

_He didn't care for intimacy. To him the idea of someone forcibly subjecting another to such disgusting and primal activities made Johnny ill. _

_Rape was also humiliating. When Johnny tortured someone he always made sure there was a point to it. The person always learned some kind of truth about what a piece of shit they were at least. _

_Rape had no lesson to teach. It was just a way for a sick individual to get off without putting in any effort of courtship._

_Johnny despised rapists. He had joyfully murdered dozens of them. He had to turn away while the two bodies merged. Thankfully it didn't last long._

_While they were mating the thing let out some rather disturbing noises. It clicked and screeched; in the middle of everything Johnny heard it speak actual words. _

_It was mumbling something perhaps a phrase? Johnny strained to hear what it was saying. He scuttled as close as he dared to venture in his hiding spot behind the dumpster._

_It was a name the thing kept repeating over and over. Johnny had to really concentrate to differentiate vowels and consonances from the much louder clicking going on. _

_He got a name though. _

_Dib._

_It didn't sound like a real person's name, however Johnny had heard stranger so he accepted it. When everything was over the malformed being pulled away from its victim. _

_Johnny heaved a little bit. He caught a glimpse of something long and wet retracting back into the creature's lower parts. _

_The woman slid down the wall. She landed bare assed on the asphalt. She didn't bother to rectify her clothing. She simply panted as she sat against the building supporting her. Her gaze was wistful. _

_The monster was wearing some kind of spandex garment. It pulled the tight material back up over its indistinguishable butt and then both scrawny shoulders quickly._

_It stopped moving. Johnny watched as the two black antennae-like protrusions lying flat against its head rise. _

_Johnny held in a large breath of air. The creature's head turned. It looked at the dumpster Johnny was crouched behind. Johnny hoped the darkness was enough to keep his face sufficiently undetectable. _

_The thing clicked and remained stoic. Those long black feelers were the only parts moving on its body. They alternated between folding and stretching out. It reminded Johnny of fingers and the way they similarly curled. _

_Just when Johnny thought his heart couldn't take any more strain the thing looked away from his hiding place._

"_Probably a rat…" It voiced. _

_The monster was gone in seconds. It scuttled away from the hazy woman and disappeared into other shadows lining the ally. _

_Johnny released his breath. He didn't dare move in case this was some kind of trap or if that thing was still close enough to hear him._

_He kept watching the woman to see what she was going to do. It was a long time before anything happened. She moved like she was drunk. Couldn't get to her feet no matter how hard she tried._

_She couldn't even get her pants back on right._

_He had helped the woman. He got her clothing back in order, adjusted her hair so it was somewhat presentable and walked her to a nearby hospital. _

_She was still in a daze, when she spoke she didn't make much sense. She mumbled more than anything. _

_When she started crying he knew she was aware of her rape on some basic level. He made sure to whisper positive things in her ear. He told her not to be afraid, the worst of it was over. _

_He walked with her to a nearby hospital and left her at its Emergency Doors. He ran away before anyone saw him, this he was positive of. _

_When he finally got home Johnny collapsed on his bed and dreamed about a monster residing in his attic. He rarely saw it except for those nights he'd catch a momentary glimpse of it staring him as he tried to sleep. _

_Every time he tried to confront it, the monster hid in the blasted walls, the one place he wouldn't dare breach._

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Zim stood unmoving in front of an inconspicuous house. His senses had guided him to this place. He had Dib's cellphone clenched tightly in one hand.

It smelled like Dib and he used it to keep a trail going. The odors he was following went through this plain neighborhood.

He had taken out a woman who was jogging. He crouched low and pretended to be crying. When the middle aged woman stopped to ask if he was ok, he lunged at her. She didn't have a chance to make any noise.

He dragged her into someone's driveway and hid behind the homeowner's car. He broke her neck, didn't need this to be bloody seeing as he wanted her clothing.

He stole them, leaving her only in her bra and panties. He tucked her body underneath the car making sure to fold in her limbs so they wouldn't be sticking out and alerting anyone for a while.

Some poor ingrate was going to be having a rough time soon. What Zim really wanted above everything was the pair of sunglasses the woman wore to protect her eyes.

He couldn't stand this much sunlight. His eyes were at their limits with it. It was adding to his nausea and the pain coursing through each temple was almost unbearable.

The protective eyewear helped more than he thought it would. It gave Zim tolerable relief from such harsh light. As far as seeing went his eyes were gradually healing.

He could see beyond an arm's length at least now. His sense of smell was also currently suffering. He had thrown up several more times; regurgitating another tiny fetus along the way.

All of this puking dulled his ability to detect finite odors. Zim's tongue, inner cheeks and lungs all networked together to absorb and process these stimuli.

Not only was he tasting these awful inner juices he was drowning in their odor as well. He was happy that he had the foresight to steal Dib's phone.

He wouldn't have been able to keep this trail without it. Of course he could've bypassed this entire search and gone straight to Dib's house.

There were problems with that idea. First off he didn't like imagining running into a situation where he would have to come face to face with the Dib's father or sister.

He hoped Dib didn't know about his apprehension towards his family. Zim wasn't ready to face them. He wanted to go about things with the Dib's relations subtly. He was planning on coercing Dib into taking care of his father for him.

As far as his sister was concerned Zim would assess how much damage she could do before committing her to death.

Dib's father was the true inherent threat. He was one of the smartest beings Zim had ever known. He needed his access and resources. Without them he might as well get comfortable being stuck on Earth forever.

He had plans which involved changing the way this little blue marble worked. He knew he would at least like having an option of leaving.

Zim was never one to stick around in a singular place for so long. Something about this planet had kept him for an extended period of time; longer than anywhere else certainly.

Who was he trying to fool? It was mostly because of Dib. Somehow the brat managed to enthrall him even before any of this unfortunate ardor started.

A little part of it had been Zim's inept behavior as well. It infuriated him to know a big reason behind such moronic conduct stemmed from faulty programming.

Or maybe it was purposeful, the more he discovered, the more it got to him. What kind of existence did he really have before his system crashed?

Definitely not an independent one. There was more to his race and eventually, in time, Zim would solve these mysteries. Right now though, he had to get Dib back under control.

He wouldn't be able to handle it if anything happened to the brat; these emotions had the alien all fucked in his headspace.

He traded slavery in one aspect of life for another but damned if he didn't enjoy wallowing in this particular enchantment.

Zim found he didn't want to live alone anymore. The very thought of staying in isolation terrified him. There were too many bad thoughts running throughout his system.

Caring for Dib helped ease these negative connotations. The ideals he sought for Earth and his life moving forward were the only things which kept Zim going, otherwise what else did he have?

A meaningless existence that's what, and Zim wanted to matter, needed to feel like his choices had any substance.

Zim slightly tilted his head to the side. He inhaled deeply. Dib was definitely here not long ago. He probably missed the brat by a sparse set of minutes.

Good he wasn't going as slow as he thought. He had half of his wits strewn about and he still managed to almost catch up.

Dib wasn't going to be able to keep going on foot at this rate, unless…

Shit.

He had gone into this house. Zim didn't need to walk up to it any further to know. The teenager's scent ebbed away from this place in an unbroken wave heading west; the direction where his house was.

Houses have phones in them. What if he used the telephone inside to call his family? What if his father was on his way right now to come pick him up?

Zim's didn't notice the cellphone cracking underneath the force of his grip. He crushed it effortlessly then cursed a moment later as shattered glass and circuity dug into his palm.

He needed a set of wheels. He hated human cars and swore to never use one. They were loud, dirty things. This was an emergency though he supposed.

He had to intercept Dib before the brat got much further. The last thing he wanted to do was go breaking into the one home which could actually be dangerous.

"Guess I'll go next door. See what the neighbors are up too."

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Oh God I'm so sorry I wanted to make this longer but I don't have the will…

I can make it like a DBZ episode. *Yells in her best announcer voice* Who is this mysterious Johnny? *cough cough*

Is Dib pregnant with a love baby?

Will the author of this crappy fanfiction ever get a life? Maybe one with real people she interacts with regularly?

Find out next time on this…thing…

It's a thing alright.

Anyway you know how I do...Imma beg for reviews and shit all the time because I NEED all of your kind words. They give me warm fuzzies and ya'll are beautiful who reviewed, liked and favorite this. Like for real real...


	6. Johnny Boy

Well then this update took a ka-billion years. So yeah I've been all busy with work and life.

However I've been mostly writing my first draft of my first novel. It's not done yet but I'm five hundred pages in the final…act? Whatever you want to call it. I've devoted all of my writing free time to it, so this kinda got forgotten.

I'm not trying to brag I'm just super stoked I'm actually about to do it. All these years saying I'm going to do it and now I'm finally coming up to the endgame. It's been a blast, a frustrating and overall time consuming nightmare in the best way possible.

Anyway I thought about this little ficlet and reread some stuff and went "It's not too bad, definitely salvageable."

It's not terribly good either though. It's a nice healthy pile of shit…my shit. I remember now I wanted a fanfic where Zim is a dominating asshole who crazy stalks Dib and couldn't find what I wanted. So I set forth to make my own.

And here it continues in all of its shitty glory.

On a sidenote that Invader Zim comic though…I have only read the first one…it's hard to get ahold of. I'm glad it's self-aware and silly like I hoped.

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Dib blinked several times. He tried to look around at where he was and couldn't see anything tangible. Everything was a blur for the moment and it scared him.

There was no reason for him to be waking up. The last thing he recalled to memory was an image of him sprinting away from his school and heading towards home.

He was panicking about something. Whatever set his feet in motion terrified him. He didn't have anything of use on his person not even his cellphone.

Dib tried to move his arms and when he realized he couldn't he went still.

As his brain pieced together his waking memories he realized he was lying face down on something soft. It cushioned his body pleasantly.

He wiggled his legs and found he could still move them. This didn't make sense. What was going on? How did he get from running around in broad daylight to this point?

Why couldn't he move his arms? Dib started to turn on the soft surface when something heavy pressed itself on his back. The new weight stopped him from flipping over.

He started to scream when he felt a hand grab the back of his head. The hand mashed his face into the softness. He couldn't breathe like this. He tried to knock the offensive weight off.

He only succeeded in getting his head pushed further into the unknown surface he rested on.

"Hush now. Don't scream. If you scream I'm going to have to hurt you and I'd rather not honestly." A deep voice commanded above the confused teenager.

Dib ceased his movement fully. He went slack to show he understood what was said. The hand pulled away from the back of his head.

He turned his head sideways and inhaled deeply to get air back into his lungs. His head was killing him. It felt like there were insects crawling around in his ear canals.

The worst part of the pain radiated from the back of his skull where the hand had been only moments before.

"You are sharp. You know, you're the first person to listen to me the first time I threatened them. Everybody else always screams at least once. I have to punch them in the head a couple of times to get my point clear before they shut up. I'm going to let you roll onto your side. Don't try anything funny now. We got a good thing going, don't ruin it."

The weight shifted and stopped assaulting Dib entirely. Dib moved and found it was difficult to roll onto his side without the use of his arms.

He ended up getting help from the unseen person with him. The man grabbed his shoulder and hip and forcibly pushed him into the desired position.

His vision was gradually coming back. The blurs were taking solid shape before him. He saw a pair of crossed legs sitting not too far from his position.

He followed the legs up and a torso greeted him next.

"How are you feeling?" The voice asked.

Dib tried to speak. His tongue was dry as if he had eaten a whole box of crackers without drinking any water along the way. A hand entered his field of vision.

A finger gently touched his right eyelid and forced it all the way open. Dib gasped. For a wild moment he thought the finger was going for his eye.

He almost felt it penetrate through its softness; could have sworn he heard it burst in his head.

When he realized nothing close to such a harsh vision actually happened, the relief washed over him.

"You'll be alright. I didn't hit you that hard. Enough to knock you out for a couple of hours. You'll have a nasty headache for a while that's about it."

Dib licked his lips to get some moisture back on them. They felt as dry as the inside of his mouth. His mouth hurt like hell too. The delicate inside flesh of his cheeks stung.

"Where am I?" He managed to say.

"That's not important now." The voice said.

"I recognize your voice."

"Well you should we literally just met today."

Dib thought about the voice's pitch and how he found it odd for someone as little as the man standing in the doorway of his memories to have such a bold set of pipes.

"Johnny…your name is Johnny."

"Surprise surprise Dib. I bet you weren't planning on hanging out with me anytime soon."

It made sense now why he couldn't remember blacking out.

Johnny had hit him in the head. From the way the throbbing in his skull continued to assault his senses, it was a safe guess he'd probably been struck with some kind of blunt object.

"Why did you hit me?"

If Dib was paying better attention he would have noticed Johnny shift to twist his upper half. He had a remote in the hand he didn't use to probe around Dib's eye.

He pressed the volume button. The television got louder so he could hear the news report going on better.

Dib caught most of the story although his headache made it hard to actually make sense of the bigger picture it painted.

"Well kid it's complicated." Johnny turned back to Dib and set the remote next to his crossed legs.

"You see there's a certain set of events which led us to where we are now."

Dib didn't have time for riddles. He wasn't the type who liked to play around. He got to the facts when it came to stories and all the little details. It was part of how his analytical brain worked.

His headache was making him irritable on top of his general frustration and his body was still coming down from the adrenaline rush he just had when he thought his eye was about to be gouged out.

All of those things contributed to the way he replied to Johnny.

"That didn't really answer my question. You're bad at telling stories."

He caught the tone of his voice to late. Johnny popped him in the ear for his smartass response.

Dib didn't cry out. He sucked in a breath of air and bit his lower lip hard to keep from letting the jolt of fresh pain get the better of him.

"It's a good thing I'm not the one who's going to be providing the entertainment then."

Dib almost told his captor to fuck off. Johnny was lucky Zim wasn't around to witness any of this mistreatment. He would have killed the bastard by now.

As soon as he thought about Zim Dib's heart fluttered. His stomach rolled over and his skin involuntarily prickled.

It was brief but the hatred he felt towards Johnny was very real. In the moment he wanted Zim to have his way with this man.

It would have served him right for daring to touch him in the first place. This kind of thinking was dangerous and foreign to his personality. Dib wasn't a vengeful person by nature.

"What do you want to talk about?" Dib practically spat at Johnny.

His stomach didn't stop turning once it started. It was the strangest feeling. It didn't hurt necessarily.

It almost felt like something was rolling around in his guts, perhaps a small animal had decided to take residence in his belly.

It actually sort of tickled. If he wasn't having such heavy throws of nausea also in the mix he would have perhaps started laughing.

He was going through an emotional rollercoaster which also wasn't a natural part of his behavior.

All of this overwhelmed him. He didn't know how to feel although he needed to figure it out sooner than later lest something terrible happened because of it.

"I wasn't expecting such attitude. You were so polite earlier."

Yeah before he got hit in the head twice now technically. Dib held his words back a second time. He was even angrier than before at how stupid Johnny sounded right now.

He knew the man was mocking him. He didn't appreciate it to say the least.

"Anyway." Johnny continued. "I want you to watch the news with me for a moment and then we'll talk ok?"

Dib didn't have a choice. Without the use of his arms he was currently at the mercy to whatever this man wanted. He had to play nice for the time being.

"Sounds great."

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_Zim broke into the first house he noticed with someone inside. It was easy enough. He slithered in quietly and effortlessly. He found a middle aged man taking a nap in his bedroom. _

_He had rooted through the lower floors first before heading upstairs. He thought he might be able to find the man's keys. His search had come up fruitless. _

_Perhaps the guy was one of those types who kept all the important stuff on a dresser or something similar. Zim slipped on one of the man's jackets from a hallway closet. _

_He brandished a grilling fork he found in the kitchen. Remnants of the man's lunch were still strewn across the area; dirty plates piled in the sink along with all the utensils. _

_The dishes and garbage had a thick meaty smell wafting from them. It was both rotten and savory at the same time. _

_Zim bet the man threw his unwanted trimmings in the garbage and forgot how fast meat soured without refrigeration. _

_The residual juices still coating the plates in the sink smelled a lot better than the shit coming from the garbage. He caught a powerful whiff of alcohol tossed in the mix as well. _

_Crushed beer cans in the open garbage can confirmed the man had consumed quite an indulgent meal. No wonder he passed out so early. He must be single and probably a borderline alcoholic. _

_Zim didn't detect any other odors of different people. There was no wife or kids. This man lived alone. Zim found his bedroom by following his sense of smell._

_The man's keys were still on him. He was still fully dressed minus his shoes. The keys were connected to his jeans with a carabiner. _

_He probably lost track of himself in the booze and could only manage to make it to his bedroom, no small feat for a drunk, before crashing. He was ugly too. _

_He had a red face lined with old acne scars and a dirty pepper colored beard which had food particles in the hairs._

_Zim almost gagged at how fat he was too. He could have been bigger and yet he had plenty of rolls. _

_His breathing was harsh, his heart was probably getting ready to stop from years of neglect to his body._

_Zim had never liked really big people. He didn't mind a little bit of something extra for human females as long as they didn't cross a certain weight limit. _

_The thicker women had the curves which typically meant they were stronger candidates for reproduction purposes._

_The men though, well he wasn't attracted to any of them beyond Dib. However, he had learned to appreciate the human species a little more; coming to see some of the beauty in their kind as a whole. _

_The man didn't deserve Zim's admiration. He readied the grill fork. The ugly drunk man woke up long enough to see the two sharp points coming down on his face._

_Zim didn't aim at anything particular on his head. He only wanted to destroy the offensive visage below him. He got the man in his left eye and cheek the first time. _

_He effortlessly pulled the long metal points out of the man's face and plummeted them down once more. He kept stabbing his face until nothing recognizable remained. _

_Blood had sprayed thick and hot across Zim's torso. It's what the coat was for to keep the feminine disguise he wore clean. He was plenty strong enough to break through the man's skull._

_The man's face collapsed much like Julia's had earlier only Zim got a full frontal view of the carnage. He enjoyed the way the man's forehead, cheeks and jaw broke down before him._

_Some of his brains shot out of his eye sockets from how forceful Zim's blows were. He was strong enough to bend metal, a greasy sack of flesh and weak bone was no big deal._

_He left the grilling fork in the bloody mess of his latest victims face. How many people had he killed today? _

_Julia, those two teenage boys who he ran into on the way out of the Skool, oh yeah, the janitor who was foolish enough to attack him with his filthy shit smelling mop of all things, he'd ripped the mop head from its base and crammed it down the man's throat until he choked, the jogger woman, and now this ugly drunk. _

_Six people had died all because Dib wanted to play hero. This wasn't how he intended for the day to go. He thought he was going to be with Dib intimately for the rest of the evening. _

_He actually planned to spend the next few days alone with the brat. It would be simple to break into any one of these dwellings and lay low._

_The more time he spent mapping all the pleasurable places of Dib's body the more time he could influence him. Besides they had never spent such a long amount of alone time together. _

_It was well past due. Zim enjoyed the idea of hiding away for a few days and forgetting about the bad things if only for a little while. _

_Dib had once talked about how he thought it would be nice to try some of those gross activities couples talked about._

_Zim didn't realize how badly he wanted to be the other half in Dib's fantasy then. He had laughed at the boy and teased him when he should have made it happen. _

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_Zim had gotten the car and sped as fast as he could go to Dib's house. He didn't see Dib at all during the drive. _

_He had parked the car he stole across the street and waited for a while._

_He figured he would get the jump on Dib if he saw him try to get into his house or if his father had picked him up he would at least have confirmation of his whereabouts. _

_Dib never showed up. Zim knew he wasn't home when Gaz, Dib's lovely sister peaked through one of the front window blinds. _

_At first he thought she was merely taking a quick peak and didn't notice him. She was a bold person and Zim admired her for it. She opened her front door and stepped onto the porch._

_Oh she was beautiful like her brother. The last eight months only made her prettier. She had the same striking hazel and gold eyes as Dib. _

_She also had the same dark hair except she routinely dyed it to various shades of purple depending on her mood. Purple was her favorite color and it suited her._

_She had let her hair grow as she got older. It was long now. It hung past her shoulders all the way to the middle of her back. She had attractive natural waves which gave it body._

_Her skin was a nice off white almost cream color. She was growing into a woman; filling out in both her chest and buttocks. _

_She had an hour glass figure which she usually showed off by wearing tight jeans and form fitting t-shirts. _

_She was currently in a pair of dark leggings and a cute gray shirt with a bunch of skulls etched into the design. Another thing about her that Zim valued was that she was getting tall. _

_She wasn't as elongated as Dib yet. She was definitely lengthier than any of her other female peers. He could tell she wasn't done with her growth spurt yet not by a long shot. _

_She stared directly at the car, at him. In his frenzy to get to Dib's house he didn't think about how suspicious a shitty unknown red sedan looked camped across the street while still running. _

_Gaz's face said it all. She was suspicious of him and although she wasn't good at expressing emotion when she did have a genuine response it played across her features in stereo volumes. _

_The person she most often responded to was her brother. She was younger than him and yet she acted like the older sibling._

_When they were in early grade school she pretended she didn't care as much as she did. As they got older she opened up more to showing her brother the affection he deserved. _

_After all, with their father gone most of the time and no mother around, they typically only had each other as company. _

_Well Zim had started hanging around more and they were kind of like a trio for a time. He enjoyed Gaz, truth be told he sort of had a thing for her before he messed with his programming. _

_It was why he was hesitant on the idea of killing her. _

_She, if anything, would be useful in the long run, and as greedy and jealous as he felt about Dib having anybody coming in close contact with him, Gaz was and always would be the special exception. _

_Actually he kind of wanted to see if he couldn't bed them at the same time at least once. _

_Gaz would be a perfect selection for bearing his offspring, and she'd be the one female he anticipated to protect during a pregnancy. _

_A big part of his plan involved spreading his genes as much as possible._

_He didn't need anything other than his instinct to tell him his DNA was compatible with humans otherwise he wouldn't be this interested in having intercourse with them. _

_It was nature whether it be in a species hundreds of millions of miles away or right on Earth. All beings obeyed the rules of procreation as long as there were variances on sex, as long as the need to have offspring applied. _

_After reversing his programming, he was becoming less and less machine and more organic with each passing day. The codes which retarded his natural growth were gone._

_Zim saw the fear on Gaz's face and he knew something besides his influence was going on. When Gaz started walking over to the vehicle he was using he floored it before she got close._

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Zim took a deep breath of air. He was back at the original house he started at. He was angry he went in a circle. He didn't have many options.

This was the last place he had sensed Dib's presence. He parked the car in the driveway. He wanted to keep it for now. He still had Dib's halfway crushed cellphone.

He was trying to isolate his individual musk from the overwhelming amount of other odors.

He got out of the car and went around to the back of the house. There was a locked wooden gate preventing access to the back yard. He yanked the whole door off its hinge and set it aside.

It was evening now. The sun was setting and the encroaching darkness was a welcome relief. He moved better in shadow. He had done enough damage during unfavorable hours.

His time was coming. His poor eyes needed it. His plan was to break into this house and interrogate the person living inside.

This person was the last to have seen Dib Zim knew of. He didn't want to try to follow Dib's fading scent trail if he could get a direct answer instead.

He went through the backyard which was surrounded by a tall wood privacy fence. The backyard was bleak in comparison with how things looked in the front.

The grass hardly grew here, most of it was dirt. Only a few off yellow patches of dry kindling remained. It was the kind of dehydrated Earth which encouraged fire.

The lone dead tree in the middle of the dirt mounds was equally as depressing. He came to a sliding glass door.

He couldn't see inside the house on the account of a set of full length paneling blocking his view.

He experimentally tried to open the door. It was locked. He balled his fist and punched the glass. It surprisingly didn't shatter on his first attempt.

He managed to make a fist sized crack in it though. The damage spread in all directions from where his hand made contact.

When he pulled his fist away it seemed like a baseball had crashed into the glass instead of a soft hand.

The cracks kept spreading. Zim enjoyed the noise they made. It reminded him of snapping bones.

He gave the glass another solid punch. It finished what the first one could not. The glass shattered, pieces of colorful and painful shards rained down on him.

A few slivers smacked against the sunglasses covering his eyes. They scratched some of its coating off in the process.

He didn't care about his face getting cut. He would wear a scarf or something if he had to. It burned in various places all over his head not only his face.

Several sharp flakes embedded into his knuckles and wrist of his right hand, the one he used to punch.

He studied the liquid coming out of his body. His blood didn't look like human blood. It was much darker, so dark it appeared almost black and more potent in smell.

It was comparable to tar. He pulled the shard sticking out between his crude disguises index and middle finger. He was happy to know he had the ability to shift his body.

It was useful to be able to alter his height and structure in order to fit into the skin suits he created, granted he couldn't shrink to anything below six foot and his limbs still sort of appeared to be too long.

Someone would have to really be paying attention in order to see the unsettling difference. It was subtle enough to hide as long as he kept moving.

His talons, no matter how much he wanted them to split into five separate digits couldn't be achieved though. He had cut them apart himself.

He took one of Vincent's knives and chopped his main two thick claws into four separate and much smaller lengths.

He left the third claw which acted as his thumb intact, it was the slightest of the three and didn't need anything drastic done.

His incredible healing couldn't mend the mess he created as long as he kept them sewn into the false skin. To compensate for this violation his body simply had adapted.

It reconstructed nerves, muscle and tissue to each individual part. He had five separate fully working fingers like the humans by the end of the weekend.

He kind of liked having ten fingers. He had an easier time grabbing smaller objects now. He pulled the rest if the larger pieces of glass from his mutilated hand.

He stepped inside and savored the crunchy glass remnants under his feet. He had walked into the kitchen. Dib's smell immediately assaulted his senses.

He was in here alright. He noticed the old rotary phone on the wall and inhaled. He definitely made a call using this device no mistaking it.

In theory Dib should have made it home by this point. If his father had picked him up somehow along the way he would have taken him there.

Zim waited long enough for him to walk home on his own as well. He knew Dib wasn't going to risk his family's safety. He was predictable in certain ways.

He loved his sister and inattentive father. Zim depended on this fact to help guide him. No, it didn't make any sense.

He walked through the house then stopped at an unassuming door.

The door was locked. It couldn't hide the pungent smell of rot coming from behind its expanse. This odor was worse than the warm scraps of meat from earlier.

The rot he smelled now was on its own level. Something big had died and was still down there putrefying. Zim didn't want to open the door.

It would have messed with what he was trying to commit to memory for his senses. He started getting a better idea of who lived here.

The house was desolate in a way which didn't cause great alarm. It had an aura of discomfort which anyone could explain away with the right excuses.

A wave of panic swept through him. It kept growing as he made way to the living room. He had honed on two scents, Dib's trail and a secondary unknown person whose smell permeated all corners of this residence.

Both of them trailed away from the front door and out onto the sidewalk. The front door was locked. He knew the person who lived here wasn't home at the moment.

Two things could have happened. Either Dib left with this stranger or the stranger had followed Dib once he went back outside.

Going from what he gathered the latter choice seemed more probable. Zim clutched at the space where his heart resided. It was in his chest like a human only on the opposite side.

The one other time he remembered it beating this hard was when his leaders gave the order to wipe him. He hated the dizziness the unexpected rush gave him.

The person responsible for whatever was in the basement of this place had followed Dib. No wonder he hadn't gone home. All the pieces fit. Dib was in trouble.

How did he let this happen? He had Dib right where he wanted him and yet he let him slip away. He thought the hand sanitizer was the smell coming from his contact solution, how foolish.

Dib had tricked him and now he was in real trouble.

Zim had to go now. For all he knew Dib was already dead; thrown into a gutter somewhere and it was his fault for being inadequate like always.

Never good enough even after coming back from death, after all the struggle of the last eight months he still had poor judgment.

This last one might have cost him the most important thing in his life. No, he refused to accept it. Dib was smart he wouldn't go down without a fight.

Zim ran through the front door without concern for who might be watching. He followed the smell enough to get a lead on what direction to go. He went back to the car and got inside.

He jammed the keys into the ignition and threw the gear in reverse when the engine came to life.

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Dib watched the entire news broadcast. He was reported missing only after the gruesome discovery of Zim's destruction.

The news didn't reveal all of the gruesome facts to the public it was too soon. Apparently Zim had killed three other people before leaving his Hi-Skool.

The confirmed death total so far was five including his teacher. He wondered what Zim had done to the three people he didn't know about until now.

He certainly could imagine the reactions when the police found what remained of that girl and Mr. Pulmonic.

While the news covered the breaking story another death was confirmed off Skool grounds. A woman was found tucked beneath a car.

Again they didn't explain how the man found her under his vehicle or how she was actually killed.

The murders, though in different places, were gruesome enough to make authorities wonder if the same killer was roaming the streets.

Dib thought so. It had to be Zim. It brought his death toll to six. Six people died because of their connection with him no matter how thin it was.

If he hadn't ran those other four people would be alive right now. If he had tried harder maybe he could have saved the girl too and stopped this before it spiraled so radically out of control.

His sister had to have reported his missing. His picture was on the screen now. They had found his abandoned notebook and school assignment in Pulmonic's classroom.

The authorities put the facts in order. He was one of his students and the timing was spot on for his disappearance.

He hoped his sister wasn't crying. She hardly cried. The only times he saw her lose herself was when the topic of their mother came up in conversation.

They couldn't remember her and yet talking about her hurt badly. It was in these moments when she admitted to him she loved him.

He didn't need any vocal confirmation to know but he treasured those rare moments.

Poor Gaz, he was supposed to protect her and here he was in a helpless situation caused by his own negligence.

Johnny turned the television off.

"So you want to tell me what caused all of that Dib?"

He got Dib into a sitting position to help stretch his back. He had used his old standby duct-tape to keep his arms behind his back. Dib crossed his legs similarly to the way Johnny was sitting.

"How would I know?" Dib lied.

"Now Dib don't lie to me anymore. I can see it in your face kid. You lied to me back at my house and you're doing it now. You know what happened to those people."

"Why do you care?"

"Nuh uh…" Johnny wagged a long pallid finger in Dib's direction. "This is my story time. If I decide to divulge my secrets I will at my leisure ok?"

Dib was speechless for a moment. He thought about testing the waters to see how far he could go and then thought it sounded like a bad idea.

Then again telling the truth was going to get him hurt. It was too farfetched and literally out of this world. He had an alien stalker running through the city killing people to try to find him.

"I…" Dib tried to think of a convincing story, one that wouldn't get him killed in the process.

"Hey Dib." Johnny leaned in close.

He remained far enough away so Dib couldn't try to head butt him or bite at his face. He had experience kidnapping people before and past situations taught him to keep his face out of reach.

"I want the truth. Lay it on me ok? Trust me I'll know if you're making stuff up."

Shit. He was stuck with nowhere to go. In this moment Dib wished he smoked. He would try to ask for a cigarette from Johnny to help calm him down.

He had noticed the pack of smokes resting by where the television resided. He tried it a handful of times.

Zim made him stop when he caught Dib mid puff. He had actually slapped it out of Dib's hand.

"How did you even get those?" The alien asked.

"Easy there's a shitty little smoke shop that doesn't card people. As long as I don't go in there too often they serve me."

"Well stop it. You're smarter than this Dib. Those things will kill you. Is it stress? I can give you a real reason to be stressed."

The memory almost made him smile. It wasn't long ago and yet it felt like a lifetime. What a difference a year could make.

Dib began telling Johnny about Zim. He first tried to say it was a boy he knew with a weird nickname. Johnny pushed him on his back, his first warning about lying.

He confessed about Zim's true origin when Johnny stood and produced a small pocket knife he kept tucked in his boot.

As soon as told the truth about Zim the rest came tumbling from his lips. He didn't go into every detail, he brushed over their history in a short summary which seemed to placate Johnny for the moment.

When it came to today's events he explained in as much detail as he could minus Zim's constant confessions of love and desire.

It was too much for him think about. He was feeling guilty and it sucked and he still didn't know why.

"Wow." Was Johnny's response when he finished his story.

Dib gaped at him. After all of this, that was it? Wow was all he had to say?

"I don't know about you but I need a fucking drink. Are you thirsty I saw you licking your lips earlier."

Dib was thirsty. He hated Johnny being right about it too.

"Yes I am." He admitted.

"Ok I'm going to the vending machine down the hall to get us some soda. I don't like the taste of plain water. You're going to stay right here and not move or else I'll have to cut the backs of your ankles and make it so you can't walk anymore."

Dib didn't say anything.

"Ah you don't seem too worried about the threat. You're more sentimental for other people. I can pick your type out of a crowd every time. Ok, how about this. There's a dude under the bed right? Well, he was kind enough to let us stay in this room and if you run away or scream I will kill him. You can't hear him right now cause I had to cut his tongue out. You can check the bathroom to confirm I'm telling the truth. There's bloody towels all over the place. I flushed the tongue down the toilet, didn't want it attracting any bugs seeing as this isn't the best motel. Hey let's say hi Dib!"

Johnny jumped off the bed and grabbed at something underneath. Dib looked over and saw an arm popping out from the bed skirt. Johnny waived the arm. The hand was missing all but one of its fingers, the pinky was still connected.

The bloody stumps of his missing fingers were black where the cuts had been made.

"Oh yeah I cut his fingers off too. He pissed me off earlier when he said my hair looked dumb. It doesn't look dumb. I like it."

He tucked the arm out of sight again. He readjusted the bed skirt and sheets and stood.

"Hey I'm trusting you ok? Don't let me down."

Johnny left the room not waiting for Dib to respond. Dib stayed put. He was mortified of having someone below the bed. He didn't actually know if the person was alive or gone.

Johnny had done all of the moving for the arm. When Zim had killed the girl he was high on his essence.

He was completely sober at the moment and he was having a hard time dealing with the idea he'd slept over a possible dead body.

Plus he wasn't sure how to deal with Johnny yet. Zim was a familiar fight. He knew how to cope with the alien.

If his hands weren't useless he would have considered trying to go against Johnny as well.

He wouldn't be able to get the door open in time without Johnny noticing and if he screamed his captor would come running back tostop him before anyone heard.

Dib closed his eyes and clamped his lips shut. He gagged. The fluttery feeling in his stomach was changing again. It started to hurt right where his diaphragm resided.

The pain wasn't unbearable. It felt like a cramp or a really deep muscle bruise being prodded at.

He plopped back on his side as a burst of discomfort shuddered through his diaphragm into his lower intestine.

Again the pain was tolerable and yet he felt that if he didn't lay down it would become something worse. He ignored any thought that had to do with what he was laying on top of.

His idea to relax helped ease some of the tension in his body. He probably pulled a muscle in his stomach and was now starting to really feel the repercussions of the injury.

He bet it happened when Johnny knocked him out. He had to have fallen hard. He was out of one trauma and thrust into a new terrifying problem.

How was he going to get out of this? What about Zim? He was still out there somewhere wandering around and plotting.

If he succumbed to Johnny who was going to stop him?

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Johnny popped in some dollar bills at the soda machine he pulled from his new benefactor's wallet. He looked at all the dimly lit selections and decided on an orange soda for himself.

It'd been years since he had one and he felt he deserved a little variety in his life. He pushed the button and waited for his drink to come tumbling down.

When he had his soda he used part of the change from its purchase and another dollar to pay for Dib's drink. He decided to get a root beer for his new temporary ward.

When he had both beverages he made his way back down the hall towards their room. He slid the key card with his free hand and entered.

No sooner had he gone back to the safety and seclusion of the room a woman wearing a purple jogging suit came around the corner of the hall.

The hood of her jacket was up over her mess of knotted brown hair. No one could hardly see her face between the hair cascading around her features and the big sunglasses covering her eyes.

She stopped at the vending machine and looked at where Johnny had walked only moments before. Zim fought to keep his displeasure from being audible.

He was to the point of hysteria. It was something he didn't know how to handle. When he saw where his lead took him he thought of bad horror movies Dib had subjected him to.

It didn't help him in calming down. He hadn't bothered to try and play nice with the receptionist. He blew plenty of pheromones into the old bitch.

She didn't scream or anything when he smashed her nose and then jammed the newly freed piece of bone into her brain.

He drug her into the back office reserved for employees. Places like this only had one maybe two personnel running the show at a time. He still tucked her into a utility closet to err on the safe side.

He followed his trail which was thicker and more intense inside the building where fresh air couldn't get to.

He cracked his neck. The sound helped soothe him. He needed to stay quiet until he was inside the room he needed to be.

He walked where his sense of smell told him to go. Whoever had taken Dib was dead and it wasn't going to be a quick exit from life either.

He made it a promise to himself mostly. Anyone who caused him such misery deserved nothing less.

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I had a blast getting back to this.

I gotta say though I really want Zim and Dib to bang. Like I'm trying to find a reason to make it happen sooner and I can't think of one.

My ship must sail strong and proud. We must be swift as the coursing river, with all the force of a great typhoon, with all the strength of a raging fire, mysterious as the dark side of the moon.

Please review me cause I still need them reviews desperately to feel good about my everything.


	7. And he ran he ran so far away

You know what I shamelessly love? Predators or the yautja or my shmexi alien BOIFRIIIIENDS as I call them…I wish…

What? Don't look at me like that.

Anyway Saturday's my birthday and I was feeling all inspired to write more of this…I'm so oldey moldy, too old to be writing fanfics but I don't even care.

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"Uh, hey kid you're not looking well." Johnny approached the bed and studied Dib.

The teenager was resting on his side again. His eyes were closed, his brow was creased and his lips were two thin lines on his face.

He either didn't notice Johnny coming back in the room or he was so wound up he didn't care about his return. He really looked like he was fixing to vomit at any moment.

The kid was probably in shock from hearing about the dead man underneath the bed. People didn't handle corpses to well.

"You alright?" Johnny persisted.

He set their sodas down next to the television and made his way over to the bed.

"My stomach hurts."

"Oh no poor baby."

Dib opened his eyes and stared at Johnny; if looks could've killed. He started to say something and then stopped.

"It's fine." It was hard for Dib to keep from insulting Johnny.

The more time he spent with the man, the more repulsed he became.

"Are you sure you don't need to go to the bathroom?"

"I said I'm fine stop pestering me about it!" Dib snapped.

Johnny threw his hands up defensively.

"Jeez somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

Was that a joke? Dib wasn't entertained by Johnny's attempt at humor.

Johnny however, clapped a few times and laughed until he snorted.

"It was funny and you know it. I'm hilarious."

Dib sighed. He didn't have the energy to care anymore. He had to accept Johnny's company for the moment. He didn't have another choice.

Johnny's merriment stopped as fast as it began. He put his index finger to his lips to indicate to Dib that he needed to be quiet.

Johnny moved to the door. He stood away from it not daring to get close enough to touch it. He looked below at the space between it and the floor.

He saw a shadow pass. He got his pocket knife ready. Dib wiggled on the bed so he could get into an upright position.

His movement made the bed creak and Johnny snapped his head around to glower at him.

He mouthed the word. "Stop."

Dib swung his bare feet over the bed and planted them on the carpet. He was tired of having no use of his hands.

His shoulders and arms were aching from being stuck in such an unnatural position for so long. Johnny positioned the knife so if he needed to slice it away from his body he could more easily.

On a physical scale he wasn't terribly strong. He was lucky Dib was almost as skinny as him.

He had struggled dragging the teenager along.

When he killed people with his hands he preferred quick decisive blows which caused the most damage without putting too much strain on his feeble body.

His plan was to slice the throat of whoever stood on the other side of the door. Three loud knocks on the door confirmed Johnny wasn't merely seeing things. Johnny didn't respond.

The person rapped his or her fist several more times, each time growing louder and the door trembled from the force of each blow.

Dib's heart thundered in his chest. Could it be Zim?

He didn't know and as much as it terrified him it also excited him. He was torn between this elevation and fear. He squirmed again making more noise than necessary.

Johnny backed off from the door. He went for Dib with his knife poised just waiting to be used for its cruel purpose.

Dib surprised him by trying to kick his shins. He dodged the kicks and went to grab a fistful of the teenager's hair. Dib fell purposefully back onto the bed to avoid it.

It forced Johnny to stoop over him and he brought his right knee up making contact with Johnny's chest.

"Oww you little shit!"

Johnny, in retaliation swung the knife and punched it into Dib's hip. Dib cried out at the pain which blasted him from where Johnny's knife entered. The door to the room came off a second later.

The neighbor directly across the hall was coming out of his room when Zim wrenched the door from it hinges.

Zim flung it back without concern for what was in its path. The door hit the man and killed him. Its impact shattered his bones. His heart and lungs were punctured by his own broken chest plate.

He died from suffocation in a matter of minutes. It was the most merciful killing so far, he was already unconscious before he hit the floor.

So much for subtly. As soon as Zim heard Dib's pain he abandoned any preconceived plan on keeping things low key.

He could only focus on the hatred he harbored for the person who caused his love such anguish.

His automaton arms went for Johnny who had enough sense to roll away at the last moment before they pierced into him.

Zim almost got Dib instead. Zim stopped them from piercing the boy, they hovered only inches from his chest.

Johnny used the momentary lapse to his advantage. He scuttled off the bed completely. He fell off at the foot of the bed and crawled under expanse to join his latest victim.

Zim leapt on top of the bed and pierced through it with his automated limbs. They went through its mattress and box spring easily.

Zim caught something fleshy and was satisfied when one of the two extremities had blood dripping from its point when he inspected them.

Johnny screamed when the inconceivable weapon got dead man next to him. He wasn't struck but he pretended to be. He crawled towards the wall and mashed himself as close against it as he could.

Zim penetrated the bed again in the same area and rejoiced when he heard nothing this time. Dib, in all the chaos had gotten off the bed and bolted for the doorway.

The knife was still embedded in his hip. He didn't feel its bite anymore. The adrenaline coursing through his body dulled his pain receptors.

Zim wasted no time in following him when he realized he'd left.

"Dib wait!"

Zim abandoned using any voice other than his own. His voice was shrill and metallic. It seemed to echo all around the hallway he ran through.

Dib turned down another hall going as fast as his long legs could possibly carry him. He had to stay away from close contact or else he wouldn't be able to resist Zim's charm.

He got a whiff of chlorine and he bolted towards the smell. Of all the luck; he couldn't believe this place had an indoor pool.

He found the door which led to the pool area. It was white and it had a list of rules taped to it. He turned around so he could grab the door handle.

He twisted the handle and almost cheered when it opened. He kicked the door to speed things along.

He was thankful he had such a head start on Zim. He wouldn't have made it otherwise. Zim was still far away. He wouldn't make it in time to stop Dib from jumping in the pool.

Dib was careful not to slip on the wet ground. He used the pool's set of stairs in order to submerge himself gently.

He stood in the smallest section, only three feet of water here so the level only saturated his legs and a bit of his genitals.

Zim cried out again, not so much from anger, more frustration and hurt. He was in the room with Dib now.

Dib continued wading thru the water until he was completely in the middle of the pool and out of any place where Zim could reach with his arms.

He faced Zim and gasped. Zim had abandoned the sunglasses and his black bulging eyes were on full display.

While he ran the hood fell down on his jacket and with nothing molding his fake head of hair to the front of his face, the hair had whipped all around his visage.

Zim's new face was hard to look at. He had stapled shredded chunks of skin together crudely to form the masking.

The staples were coming apart, the chunks of flesh peeling away falling onto his chest and the floor. It was a fast and shitty job he'd done. It barely qualified as a covering.

One of the pieces plopped into the water while Zim stood on the concrete edge. He said something Dib couldn't understand yet recognized from the articulation of the dialect.

When he was really frustrated Zim would slip phrases out in his native tongue. Dib understood the most basic of expressions. He had a better grasp of the language in writing than in speech.

Zim ripped the disguise off much like he had with Dib's teacher. He threw the bits into the water below. He was covered with a thick layer of crusty dried blood.

He didn't have time to clean the girl's skin like he had with Vincent. It was dark outside now he didn't need to be hidden away anymore.

He went to work next in getting the skin off his hands starting with the left one. He'd ignored the itch from them as long as he could.

He dug at his wrists with his needlepoints for teeth where he'd melted the flesh into his to make it blend together.

He removed the skin with his mouth like a glove. It hurt, part of his own flesh came away as well and he hissed a couple of times from the burning of having his muscles meet the air.

His healing ability went to work growing new flesh for him immediately.

He spat the abandoned epidermis and went to his right hand which was still recuperating from the window he broke earlier.

His oily blood dripped into the water and it made pretty little swirl patterns on the surface.

"You're a mess." Dib said.

"Only because of you." Zim smirked although there was no merriment in the act.

Zim stalked around the pool. Dib winced at the reawakened pain in his hip. The chlorine which seeped into his wound felt like he dumped a whole bottle of alcohol on it.

Zim crouched on his haunches and barfed into the pool. The urge had come on strong, he couldn't help himself.

Dib shook his head. The noise of hearing multiple splashes of solid and liquid hitting the water was nasty.

Zim didn't see any wriggling shapes in his sick. He wiped at his mouth with his newly formed claws.

"Go away Zim. You can't get me in here and you can't stand around forever and risk being exposed."

"You think? Maybe I'll wait here until the end of time."

"We both know that's not possible."

"Aren't you tired Dib? We could find a nice place to rest together since were both so messed up. I know I'd like to sleep for a long time. I've started having to take naps ever since I began growing. It's strange having to shut down like that. It's kind of nice though. I don't think about anything when I'm asleep. Vincent hated it when I rested. I still don't have any eyelids so I have a really intimidating stare while I'm out."

"I'm fine right where I am."

"You know you're making this harder than it needs to be. I thought you'd like my surprise coming back today and here we are. What happened?"

"You've lost it Zim if you think I'd be happy with you killing again. Humans have never mattered to you and I swore to protect my home against you. I changed when you changed and now you're behaving like the old Zim I didn't like at all."

"You just don't understand Dib. I'm the best choice for this planet. You want to talk about saving people? Without me the whole human race will die in time. At least with me I'll give them a purpose. Besides I get you feel responsible for these pathetic dirt crawlers but you'll never truly be like them Dib and you know it. You are above them and so you are an outcast. You know, were a lot alike you and me. It's too bad I had to die in order to figure out how superior I was. I used to be sad like you though I didn't realize it at the time. I used to think if only I could get acceptance from my peers I'd somehow be happier. I know you wonder all the time about your loyalty to a bunch of ungrateful savages, I know deep down you feel the same as me."

"Arrogant as always."

"Says the boy with a hero complex. Come on Dib you know you're as conceited as me thinking you're the only one who can save everybody."

Dib glanced at the faraway door to the pool area. He didn't hear any commotion coming from the hallways and wondered how long it would be before people started panicking.

"Get out of there. I'll cut you free from those bindings and we'll leave together. I want to take care of you."

Dib hated the affect Zim's words had on him without any of his pheromones making him susceptible.

He had always wanted this affection he supposed. He cared about Zim despite how terrible he was. He probably loved him. He could never do anything right.

"Dib..." Zim's tone changed.

It went from ear splitting to a soothing low decibel Dib had never heard before. The utterance came from somewhere deep in his chest.

"You don't care about me. I'm something you want to own and eventually you'll get bored of me and throw me away." Dib interrupted.

"No I won't. I want to extend your life stupid. We'll kind of switch, I'll keep getting more organic and you will have to be altered to be more machine like. This way you'll live a much longer time, hopefully as long as I and you'll get to see the universe like we talked about. I'll give you everything you want. All I ask is for you stay with me. I think it's a fair trade for what I offer."

Dib wasn't sure how to respond. He could see the old Zim, the Zim who enchanted him peeking from the gore.

"What if I wanted you to not kill any more people? Would you stop whatever it is you're planning and run away with me now?"

Zim said nothing. His body cracked and popped and his arms, legs and torso grew back to their original lengths. He stood to his full height. He wanted Dib to see how tall he'd actually become.

He took his off the shoes since his clawed feet were about to burst out of the petite feminine coverings. He felt ridiculous wearing the small jogging suit now.

He didn't like the idea of getting completely nude either, at least not here. Zim plunged his foot into the pool water unexpectedly. Dib was so surprised by it he audibly gasped.

The alien braced himself for the onslaught of agony and when nothing happened he grinned. It was a toothy genuine smile, the kind of smile which he displayed when he got his way.

"Dib look…water doesn't hurt anymore."

All at once Dib realized how foolish he'd been. The signs of Zim's immunity were right in front of his eyes.

Their kisses from earlier hadn't caused any harm to him and he was covered in drying blood now.

He was so messed up from everything he never stopped to wonder about it before. Dib knew he'd run out of options. He tried to get out of the pool but didn't get far.

It only took Zim seconds to get into the water with him and close the gap between their bodies. He stooped so he could wrap one arm tightly around Dib's shoulders.

He wrenched the knife from Dib's hip with his other hand. He used it to cut Dib's arms free from their holding. He pushed Dib face first into the pool when he was done with this task.

Dib splashed around and then surfaced. His clothing and hair stuck to him. The only time his wild locks could be tamed was when they were wet.

His hair had grown longer than he thought. It hung close to his shoulders. Zim broke through the water molecules again with his hands. He showered Dib with a fresh burst of the cool liquid.

Dib rubbed at his eyes. The chlorine hurt when it mixed with his contacts.

"I think that's what you humans call karma for what you did to my eyes earlier. Don't worry I'm not mad anymore. I won't hold it against you."

Dib squeezed his eyes shut from the stinging sensation. He backed away from Zim until his ass hit something hard. He had nowhere left to go.

Zim batted his hands away and grabbed his cheeks. He forced Dib to look at him. He loved the fact that Dib had to crane his neck in order to make eye contact.

Dib's eyes were bloodshot, he strained to keep them open.

"I adore you." Zim professed. "You're all I've been thinking about since Friday when I caught your scent. My sense of smell only recently returned to normal. I promise I never entirely forgot you, however with all these changes happening to me I was so preoccupied with dealing with it, it didn't register you were waiting for me."

Zim held his pheromones in check. He wanted Dib to hear this without any outside influence. He needed Dib to hear him and know he meant what he said.

"I've never cared about anything as much as I care about you. I'm not good at coping with this fact. I can't help myself. If anything you have more experience when it comes to raw passion. Emotionally I'm the equivalent of toddler. If I want something I take it. I'm trying. I'm doing the best I can, I didn't ask for this to happen."

"Zim…"

"No listen to me. Whoever that fucker was who brought you here could have really hurt you. He's the kind of person you want to save? Do you understand this? You're willing to die to spare people like him? You would choose those people over me?"

"No it's not like that!" Dib pushed on Zim's chest. "I can't pick and choose it's either all of them or nobody. I can't control people and what they do. All that's in my power is to ensure humanity keeps going."

Zim forced Dib to sit on the pool's edge by pushing him until he understood what he wanted.

He placed his arms on either side of the teenager's hips carefully avoiding Dib's hemorrhaging wound. He dipped his mouth into the crook of Dib's neck.

He ran his tongue over an important artery and enjoyed feeling Dib's quickening heartbeat.

"Purple isn't your color."

The peculiar statement threw Zim off guard. He pulled his face away so he could kiss Dib's cheek.

"Oh?" He breathed.

On this exhalation he let loose some of his hormones into the air which Dib caught.

"Stop it."

"Why?"

"Because I like it more than I should. It's not fair either."

"It's plenty fair when it's natural for my body to do."

Zim unzipped the jacket and rolled it down his emaciated shoulders. Dib stared at his chest. It was an unbroken view of bone, poor muscle density and marred skin.

Zim didn't have nipples or a belly button, it was all smooth. His skin felt spongy and pliable as opposed to Dib's which was soft yet thicker.

Zim was prone to bruising and cuts easier than Dib. He had a mess of red angry blotches covering his chest and stomach.

The old blood which covered him slowly dripped into the pool water. It had somewhat reconstituted after being wetted again.

Before they had gotten into the pool it was a lot cleaner. There was vomit, blood, pieces of skin and a whole scalp full of hair floating around sullying the water.

Zim had to push the floating mass of hair away with his hand when it drifted to close to the couple.

Dib hardly noticed. He touched one of the bigger marks on Zim's abdomen which stuck out amongst the brown of the blood and the green of Zim's skin.

Zim clicked approvingly at his touch.

"I like those noises too despite me calling you a cricket."

"And I love it when you touch me."

Dib flushed at Zim's words. He felt more lightheaded and carefree. The rolling in his stomach had ceased. It completely vanished as if it was never there to begin with.

Zim's words encouraged Dib to be bolder. He flattened his palm against Zim's wound. He pushed on the odd bruise and it made Zim flinch.

Zim stuck his finger into Dib's knife wound in retaliation. Dib moaned part from pain and a shocking amount of ecstasy.

Zim groped Dib's ass with his free hand. He kept his finger buried inside Dib's hip. The wound had a suction on his digit. It was as if it was inviting him to go deeper.

Dib's muscle was warm and wet. He moved his finger in a slow agonizing circle. Dib punched him in his bruise.

"Careful." Zim warned.

Dib apologized for his sudden outburst by gently kneading Zim's slight waist. He was thinner than the teenager overall.

This added with his height made it hard for Dib's brain to adjust to how he appeared.

Zim went for the zipper to Dib's sopping cargo pants. He had to force himself to stop before things went too far. Dib moaned his protest.

"Not here beautiful. We have to go. I don't want anyone interrupting us, or more specifically I don't want them looking at you."

"You don't own me." Dib sounded about as confident as he felt.

The redness from his flushed cheeks spread to his entire face.

"Of course I do. You're the one I plan on spending the rest of my life with."

Zim tried to pull himself out the pool water. Dib shoved him back into it before he fully emerged. He put all of his strength into the push.

He scooted away from the pool. He rolled around and got to his hands and knees. Zim was already out of the water and standing before Dib could go any further.

Zim grabbed Dib's right ankle and jerked him several feet across the tile.

"I've played nice for as long as I can stomach. Quit pushing me away."

Zim twisted the foot in his grasp until Dib was beating both hands against the ground. If he had gone any further he would have snapped the ankle in multiple places.

He grabbed Dib by his shirt and pulled him into a standing position. Dib's strained ankle rolled and he fell into the alien's eager grip.

"Why do you always have to be so mean?" The beguiled teen couldn't stop how doleful he sounded.

"You are the one who keeps hurting me. I keep professing my love and you keep throwing it in my face! You make me so mad!"

Zim wanted to shake Dib. Being nice had almost led to him getting killed. These were the problems Zim knew would happen. Dib was too much of a danger to himself.

"Let's go. We'll find an emergency exit in case there's too many people in the front. Come on."

Zim captured Dib's hand with his. It was the first time the teenager noticed the added digits. Zim squeezed his hand hard while he ground his insubstantial knuckles against each other.

"Don't push me away anymore. I can't stand it."

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*sigh*

They almost diddled…

Almost…


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